The Federal Government is targeting fresh $2bn (N394bn) as non-oil export earnings in the 2016 fiscal period. The Managing Director, Nigerian Export-Import Bank, Mr. Robert Orya, disclosed this in Abuja on the side-lines of a conference on how to stimulate non-oil exports.
The conference, organised by the Central Bank of Nigeria in collaboration with NEXIM, had as its theme: ‘Strategies for growing Nigeria’s non-oil exports’. Orya lamented that the country had not been able to achieve the potential of the sector despite its abundant resources, adding that there was a need for banks to increase lending to non-oil exporters.
Available statistics showed that credit to the non-oil export sector had been declining in the last five years, with the sector getting about 0.6 per cent of the total domestic credit to the economy. Orya said the dearth of funding from banks for non-oil exports was a major reason for the N300bn intervention fund set up by the CBN.
This is coming few days after the government plan to rake in billions of naira with the implementation of the N50 Stamp Duty charge which the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) directed all deposit money banks and other financial institutions to collect.
For instance, it is estimated that about N1.0 billion will be generated from cheque base transactions, asides what will be generated from electronic funds transfer, instant payments and cash deposits. It is expected that the government will make more money from transfers, as banks customers now do more transactions online and through ATM transfers, making cheque transactions shrink.
According to data from the Inter Bank Settlement System (NIBSS) which processes all electronic transactions in the country, over 15 million cheques were processed in 2014 while over 10 million cheques had been processed by the end of 2015 third quarter.
Total electronic funds transfer and instant payments between January and September last year was 71.14 million. As at September 30, 2015, total current accounts in the country stood at 22.06 million.
