Kerosene imports gulps N70.7bn in quarter Q4, 2016

The petroleum products imports statistics for the full year 2016, show that 18.8 billion litres of premium motor spirits (PMS), 4.89billion litres of automotive gas oil (AGO) and 713.79 million litres of household kerosene (HHK), valued at N2.01trillion, N505.8billion and N70.7billion respectively, were imported into the country (NBS Q4 Report 2016).

The head of Banking and Finance Department, Nassrawa State University, Dr Uche Uwaleke who is also a Financial Economist and an Associate Professor of Finance at the University stated this at the 23rd CBN seminar for Business Editors and Finance Correspondents in Sokoto State.

In view of the huge import bill amidst dwindling external reserves, he said that the CBN introduced some policy measures to help conserve foreign reserves as well as facilitate the resuscitation of domestic industries.
These he said include excluding 41 items (including toothpicks) from accessing the official window of the Nigerian foreign exchange markets.

The measures also involve Interventions in Agriculture, Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) and Infrastructure
“Specifically, the interventions include the Agricultural Credit Guarantee Scheme Fund (ACGSF),the Commercial Agricultural Credit Scheme (CACS), the Agricultural Credit Support Scheme (ACSS), the N300 billion Real Sector Support Facility (RSSF), the N 220 billion Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Development Fund (MSMEDF), the Small and Medium Enterprises Refinancing and Restructuring Facility (SMERRF), the N75 billion Nigeria Incentive Based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL), the N 213 billion Nigeria Electricity Market Stabilization Fund and only recently, the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme,” he said.

“In particular, the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme which was launched in November 2016 by President Buhari aims at creating economic linkages between over 600,000 smallholder farmers and large-scale processors with a view to increasing agricultural output. There is also the Dangote Rice projects in 14 states which is capable of generating a significant number of jobs and reducing the nation’s food import bill,” he stressed.

He stated that these policy measures are expected to increase the level of credit to the real sector and increase domestic production leading to job creation, increased accretion to foreign reserves through non-oil exports as well as increased contribution to GDP by the real sector. Worthy of note is the CBN’s Anchor Borrowers’ Programme which is proving to be successful in several states.