Nigeria’s gradual slowdown in inflation has opened the door to interest-rate cuts, but external shocks have complicated \u200bthe outlook, Central Bank Governor Olayemi Cardoso said on Thursday, \u200csignalling policymakers remain in no rush to begin easing.<\/p>\n
Investors have been searching for signs that the central bank is nearing an easing cycle after months \u200bof slowing inflation. But Cardoso’s remarks underscored policymakers’ caution over \u200bexternal shocks and price risks, suggesting rates may remain \u2060higher for longer.<\/p>\n
Speaking at the BusinessDay conference in Lagos on Thursday, \u200bCardoso pointed to nearly a year of disinflation as evidence the \u200bcentral bank’s tightening campaign was working.<\/p>\n
“There were 11 months of continuous disinflation,” he said, adding that the trend had strengthened expectations that “over a period of time, \u200bwe would expect interest rates to begin to moderate.”<\/p>\n
But he said \u200bgeopolitical shocks, including\u00a0conflict involving Iran, had disrupted that trajectory. “If not for the fact \u200cthat \u2060we had this, we had projected that going into next year inflation would have been down to very moderate levels.”<\/p>\n
Cardoso defended the bank’s decision to hold rates at its last meeting, despite market expectations \u200bof an impending policy \u200bpivot. “We didn’t \u2060cut, and believe me, we saw things that most other people didn’t see.”<\/p>\n
He said the Monetary Policy \u200bCommittee would remain guided strictly by data rather \u200bthan market \u2060sentiment, and credited the early implementation of\u00a0economic reforms\u00a0with helping Nigeria withstand recent global shocks.<\/p>\n
“One of the reasons for that is the fact \u2060that \u200bwe had undertaken the reforms a lot \u200bearlier,” Cardoso said. “We had resilience and we were able to withstand the shocks.”<\/p>\n
The Monetary \u200bPolicy Committee meets July 20-21.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Nigeria’s gradual slowdown in inflation has opened the door to interest-rate cuts, but external shocks have complicated \u200bthe outlook, Central Bank Governor Olayemi Cardoso said on Thursday, \u200csignalling policymakers remain in no rush to begin easing. Investors have been searching for signs that the central bank is nearing an easing cycle after months \u200bof slowing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9144,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Reuters","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,2362,27],"tags":[175,1445],"class_list":["post-21449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","category-featured","category-west-africa","tag-nigeria","tag-olayemi-cardoso"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21449"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21449\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21450,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21449\/revisions\/21450"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}