Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, director-general of the World Trade
Organization (WTO), says the world trade body is worried about Nigeria’s
multiple exchange rate regime and how it affects international trade.
While responding to questions from journalists after a
meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari in Abuja on Monday, the former finance
minister said some member states of the WTO have complained about Nigeria’s
invoking the balance of payment agreement to make to be able to conserve
foreign exchange.
“WTO has one of the agreements of balance of payments, and
Nigeria certainly invoked this to be able to conserve foreign exchange. But
some other members have brought a complaint against us (Nigeria) that we
shouldn’t have used this article in that way,” she said.
“Yes, the WTO is concerned about foreign exchange, the way
we manage it, the way we use it, and how we use it to support manufacturing or
imports and exports in our economy.”
Okonjo-Iweala said she will meet with Godwin Emefiele,
governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), to further discuss the
situation.
“I think that we had that discussion with them, they
complaints about the exchange rate regime and we (Nigeria) try to explain.
“I shouldn’t say we because I’m now DG WTO, it is for
Nigeria’s representative to explain to the WTO, to those members complaining
why we’re doing this.
“But eventually, I think having a strong exchange rate and
being able to phase out of this, I think we’ll be heading in that direction.
We’re also going to see the governor of the central bank, and will undoubtedly
discuss some of these issues.”
More to follow…
Advertise on NigerianEye.com to reach thousands of our daily users
No comments
Post a Comment
Kindly drop a comment below.
(Comments are moderated. Clean comments will be approved immediately)
Advert Enquires - Reach out to us at NigerianEye@gmail.com