The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has raised its benchmark interest rate by 100 basis points to 17.5 percent, after the first of a two-day meeting in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital city.
The CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, disclosed this while reading the communiqué of the first MPC meeting of the year on Tuesday.
The CBN also retained CRR at 32.5 percent; while the Liquidity Ratio was also kept at 30 percent.
The latest increase is the fifth in recent months and the highest level since 2000.
The decision came after a gradual drop in inflation rate, which decelerated to 21.34 percent in December of 2022, down slightly from a 17-year peak of 21.47 percent in November 2022, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).