President Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday said with the myriad of economic challenges facing the country, it would be difficult to achieve the desired growth with monetary policy instruments alone.
The president, who stated this while speaking at the opening session of the 2016 annual meeting of the Association of African Central Banks, noted that with effective balancing of monetary and fiscal policy measures the needed growth would be achieved.
The event held at the headquarters of the Central Bank of Nigeria had as its theme “Unwinding Unconventional Monetary Policies: Implications for Monetary Policy and Financial Stability in Africa.”
Buhari said that with the African region facing economic challenges such as slowdown in growth, weakening global demand, rising inflation, rising debts among others, there is need for policy makers to come with innovative solutions to address these problems.
He said, “The region is confronted with several global and domestic economic challenges. Most worrisome is the slowdown in growth; weakening global demand; rising inflation; restrictions in capital flows; rising debt levels; increased exchange rate volatility and depleting external reserves.
“Those of us who rely on only natural resources such as Nigeria, Angola, South Africa, and Mozambique have been hit the hardest.
“Faced with these challenges, African Central Banks have been at their best in keeping African economies afloat through proactive and effective combination of conventional and innovative monetary policies.
“We fully understand that monetary policy alone is not sufficient to bring about desired economic growth. We must carefully balance monetary and fiscal policy measures.”
More details later… Punch
