WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.
Original Post Date: 2010-08-02 Time: 13:00:02 Posted By: News Poster
Stakeholders in the nation’s economy including the Federal Government, real sector operators and banks were full of praises last week, as they gathered for the launch and signing ceremony of the N130 billion by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to refinance and restructure loans granted Small and Medium-scale Enterprises (SME) at the Presidential villa, Abuja.
In consonance with the elements of Federal Government’s economic agenda include, the fund enhancing access to credit by the SMEs, and improving the banks’ financial position.
The fund is also to increase national productivity, thereby helping employment generation, diversify revenue base, increase foreign exchange earnings and provide input for industries on a sustainable basis.
A total of 317 applications for N130 billion, representing 84 per cent, were considered qualified for the intervention, out of the 377 applications for N150 billion received from obligors.
Vice President Namadi Sambo, in his remark, noted the huge expectations from the manufacturing sector for the nation to attain its vision of becoming one of the 20 biggest economies globally by year 2020. He thanked the apex bank for proactiveness in consultation with the Bankers’ Committee, organised private sector, manufacturers and other key stakeholders in determining the required ‘tonic’ to rejuvenate the real sector as well as enhance the liquidity of our banks.
“This administration has endeavoured to provide enabling environment and physical incentives for manufacturing to thrive in order to achieve global competitiveness. “The CBN has taken a bold initiative to complement Federal Government’s efforts by investing in the N500 billion Debenture Stock issued by Bank of Industry (BOI) for lending to the real sector thereby making a significant contribution to the unlocking of credit in the credit market and improving operational efficiency in the economy”.
“The facility being provided has two components- N300 billion for funding the power sector and N200 billion for the SMEs and manufacturing. Already, approval has been granted for the disbursement of almost 60 per cent of the fund”.
“It is gratifying to note that this one of the most comprehensive and realistic initiatives aimed at reviving a sector that ordinarily should be the highest employer of labour, a position which it has unwittingly ceded to the Federal Government”.
Continuing, Sambo commended the foresight and astituteness of CBN Governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, for his assiduousness and passion in the reformation of the banking sector and provision of liquidity support to banks aimed at drastically lowering the cost of credit to the real sector.
“Sanusi has proven to be a strong agent of change in the Nigerian economic sphere,” he noted, calling on participating banks to show good faith in the scheme by further bringing down the single digit interest rate of 7.0 per cent. He challenged them to expand credit in the market through new loans with their 50 per cent matching fund on or before December 31, 2010 as the scheme mandates, while urging for the much needed stakeholder buy-in into the “commendable initiative.”
For Ms. Evelyn Oputu; Managing Director, Bank of Industry (BoI), the move is part of efforts by the CBN mitigate the effects of the liquidity crisis on the real sector by providing boosting liquidity in the banking system to enhance productive activities in the economy at reasonable interest rate.
“The launching and signing ceremony of the N130 billion intervention fund marked a threshold in the history of monetary policy management in a financial crisis environment like Nigeria as characterized by exposure to external threat in forms of decline in asset value; market contagion and reversal of capital inflow all of which led to disruption the credit allocation, thereby deepening the crisis further,” she explained further.
While commending the CBN for reposing confidence in the BoI as shown in its appointment to manage the disbursement process, Oputu noted that the move is also in line with a renew commitment by the BOI to faster industrial development and ensure Nigeria’s economic growth. She promised effective monitoring, while ensuring recovery of the fund as and when due.
Addressing the gathering Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede, Managing Director and chief executive of Access Bank Plc, the initiative is an aftermath of the famous Enugu retreat of the Bankers’ Committee held in December 2010 where the role of the banking system in the economic development of Nigeria was redefined.
He expressed amazement at “the timely and excellent manner with which the CBN, under Mallam Sanusi has delivered on its mandate after the retreat,” just as he listed advantages of the fund to borrowers to include “cheaper funding, appropriate tenor, new lease of life to revive their businesses”.
Advantages to participating banks, he said, include: “improved quality loan portfolio, single digit lending rate and longer tenor sources of funding. The CBN has catalyzed the banking industry for the funding of infrastructural development which includes the on-going constructive engagement between banks and Federal Government with regards to funding the power sector”.
For Alhaji Bashir Borodo, President MAN, “it takes a creative courage and courageous banker like Mallam Sanusi to make this kind f thing possible. What the CBN Governor has done is the most creative intervention ever seen, as nowhere has the Central Bank ever come out rescue the real sector directly.
“As a developing country, we need more creative approach to solving our problems. We are most grateful for this initiative and perhaps, more fundamental change was that Manufacturers Association of Nigeria, (MAN) & National Association of Small & Medium Entrepreneurs (NASME) were involved in the technical committee that worked out the modalities for the implementation of this initiative”. “It is indeed a new CBN, it used to be a “CBN” that one hardly approaches or talked to, especially on critical issues like this”.
Sanusi lamented that the past tradition of where banks depended on currency trading, share trading and speculation of financial market cannot sustain an industry that seeks to be one for the future. This is why, he added, banks must play their role as catalysts of growth of the real economy by providing finance.
Original date published: 1 August 2010
Source: http://allafrica.com/stories/201008020608.html?viewall=1