Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, has said the target of the CBN is for the country to attract about $2bn monthly as remittances from Nigerians in diaspora.
The CBN boss told journalists during a press briefing on the new policy in Abuja on Thursday that countries with similar demographic features with Nigeria, such as Pakistan, often received about $2bn monthly from their citizens in diaspora.
The governor said this after CBN introduced its new Diaspora Foreign Exchange Remittances Policy.
“I’m aware from the data available that, for instance, Pakistan, even in the midst of COVID-19 receives $2bn monthly from flows from Pakistani in diaspora.
“If Nigeria is able to receive even if it is just $1bn monthly or moving close to $2bn monthly, I’m so certain you all know what will happen to the exchange rate in Nigeria.”
According to Emefiele, should the $2bn monthly target be met, Deposit Money Banks would, after some time, have no need of calling the CBN to fund its commercial operations.
He continued, that is why “We are saying that we want to aggressively take on this and see how this will help our economy”.
While alerting Nigerians home and abroad that the policy of recipients receiving their monies from abroad would kick off Friday December 4 this year, Emefiele said CBN ordered all DMBs to close all their Naira General Ledger through which the naira remittances were hitherto being carried out.
For the CBN governor, this step is to block any loophole to manipulate the policy.
