The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has predicted that Nigeria’s inflation running at 28.92 percent will drop to 23 percent in 2024, and further to 15.5 percent in 2025.
Nigerian consumer prices climbed at the fastest annual pace in almost three decades in December, as a halt to fuel subsidies stoked transport costs and the naira weakened.
IMF’s Division Chief of Research Department, Daniel Leigh, said Tuesday that the weak naira is one of the drivers of inflation in the West African nation.
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in June 2023 implemented foreign exchange restrictions that caused the naira to almost halve in value by the end of 2023.
To restore price stability, the financial regulator is expected to lift its key interest rate for the ninth time in a row when it meets on February 26 for its Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting. It has raised rates by a combined 725 basis points from May 2022 to 18.75 per cent when it last met in July 2023.
Leigh, however, did not state the exact month the decrease in inflationary pressures will be witnessed in 2024.
Source: https://www.vanguardngr.com/2024/01/nigerias-inflation-rate-to-drop-to-23-in-2024-15-5-in-2025-imf/
—Ezinwanne Onwuka reports for TruthNigeria from Abuja.
