The Governor, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr Godwin Emefiele, says the Monetary Policy Committee will chart a new course for an improved monetary policy and Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) that will provide direction for the country’s monetary policy.
He spoke Tmat a Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) Strategic Retreat in Lakowe, Ibeju-Lekki in Lagos,where he also
said that technology and innovation was playing a major role in output growth and economic development in Nigeria.
The development necessitated the need to explore new ways of adapting monetary policy tools to improving the contribution of technology and innovations to the growth equation,he said.
According to him,monetary policy had been severely challenged, as its policy space narrowed significantly, in some cases, paradoxically and necessitating the need to rethink monetary policy in the context of emerging challenges and economic transformation.
He said,whereas, innovations come with lot of risks and uncertainties for the sectors, they also have many benefits for positive economic transformation, particularly, financial inclusion which has been the principal catalyst for inclusive growth, poverty reduction and employment generation.
He also said that the apex bank had championed the financial inclusion principle to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including the recent launch of the eNaira.
He added that since its launch, a large unbanked populace had been captured into the formal sectors, saying that it had also improved monetary policy efficiency and positive impact on the better standard of living for the population.
He said that the central banking and monetary policy relevance in the digital ecosystem was sometime challenged as the regulatory oversight functions were largely eroded or weakened by impotency of traditional tools in carrying out those functions.
He also said:“In order to ensure the relevance of monetary policy and the role of monetary authorities in the new digital world, MPC members must embrace themselves with advanced level understanding of the interplay of digitalisation with monetary policy objectives, targets and tools.’’
Emefiele explained that the purpose of the retreat was to conduct a self-appraisal on committee’s performance for four years after the last retreat was held and brainstorm on new methods of addressing the increasing challenges confronting monetary policy formulation and implementation in Nigeria.
