The recent banking sector reform is targeted at stabilising the Nigerian economy, the Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Sanusi Lamido Sanusi,? said.
Sanusi made the statement? in Lagos on Thursday at the 4th stakeholders’ forum, organised by the Nigeria-Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
Represented by Mr Sola Awoyungbo, Director, Financial Policy and Regulations in the bank, Sanusi said CBN carried out periodic risk assessments on commercial banks in Nigeria.
The governor, who spoke on the theme, ‘Driving the Present Economic Transformation Agenda of Nigeria: Role of Financial Regulation,’ said the exercises revealed that several commercial banks were unhealthy.
He said CBN had been financing small and medium scale enterprises in Nigeria through the Bank of Industry and other financial institutions.
In his remarks on the occasion, Mr? Tayo Omidiji in-charge of Strategy at Nigeria-Export Import Bank (NEXIM), warned that the country’s reliance on proceeds from? crude oil could ruin the economy.
Investing in other sectors of the economy, such as agriculture and solid minerals, Omidiji noted, would increase the nation’s export revenue and create employment.
He said that NEXIM provided credit facilities to small and medium scale enterprises interested in exporting their products.
A former minister of Foreign Affairs, Amb. Olu Adeniji, stressed the need for micro-finance banks in the country `to wake up’ to their responsibility of being the financier of small and medium businesses’’.
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