….Gets $60m Inflow in 2 months
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has said it has commenced payment of N3.5 billion rebate to 150 exporters under the RT200 FX programme which has since its introduction in February this year seen an inflow of $60 million dollars.
This is as the Central Bank of Nigeria and commercial banks in the country say they will continue to push merchants to adopt the e-naira to increase its usage in the country.
Speaking with journalists at the end of the 364 meeting of the Bankers Committee which held virtually yesterday, the Managing Director of Fidelity Bank, Mrs Nneka Onyeali-Ikpe, noted that the N3.5 billion will be disbursed to exporters of finished and semi-finished products who qualified under the RT200 FX programme.
Introduced in February this year, the RT200 FX Programme, targeted at increasing the non-oil foreign exchange earnings of the country over the next three to five years using a set of policies.
Under the programme exporters of finished and semi-finished goods are to get a rebate of N65 and N35 per dollar that is remitted into the country through the banks.
“At the meeting of the bankers committee
today, the central bank governor announced
the immediate release of rebates totaling N3.5 billion incentives to our various exporters in fulfillment of his promise on the policy on the race to $200 billion from non-oil exports to boost the foreign exchange inflows into the
country.
“This policy was rolled out in February 2022. The initiative is to encourage value addition to export products of Nigeria. Specifically, the policies focuses to value addition in place of immediate which is semi-finished products, intermediate which is semi-finished products and completely finished products.”
On how much foreign exchange has been brought into the country through the programme she said “the figure that I have is $60 million which is the figure coming out of the central bank. On how many exporters have benefited from the N3.5 billion that the central bank is going to distributed today.
“There are 150 customers at various levels and some under the finished goods and some under the semi-finished good that qualified for the rebate. The money was only released today for this quarter and it is going to be paid quarterly. And this N3.5 billion is going to be paid at the close of business to the 150 customers.
“You will recall that the central bank governor announced rebates of N65 for every dollar of export proceeds sold to another enduser and that the proceeds from the exports that is sold to another end-user will attract a rebate of N65 while the proceeds from exports utilised by the exporter will attract a rebate of N35 for every dollar of the proceeds utilised by the exporter.”
Meanwhile the Managing Director of Guaranty Trust Bank Limited, Mrs Miriam Olusanya, while speaking on the progress of the enaira in the country said “in terms of downloads we have seen 756,000 downloads for retail consumer wallets 165,000 and 2800 merchant wallets.
