Nigeria: Central bank holds interest rates

by Rafiu Ajakaye

LAGOS, Nigeria

Nigeria's central bank on Tuesday held the key interest rate at 11 percent in its first meeting on monetary policy in the new year.

The bank also held the official rate of the naira to the dollar at N197.

"The current episode of lower oil prices is expected to remain over a very long period," central bank governor Godwin Emefiele told the press after the meeting.

Emefiele said that this necessitated hard choices like high interest rates.

Experts had expected the central bank to devalue the currency which continues to fall in the parallel markets. On Tuesday, the naira was at close to 300 to a dollar in unofficial trading@.

Wale Olusi, an investment research analyst at Afrinvest, said the decision of the central bank to keep the current rate is "simply not realistic."

"The central bank itself acknowledges the pressure on the naira," Olusi told Anadolu Agency on Tuesday, "so it is dodging the obvious." .