Nigerian press spotlights report of Naira being under pressure, others

APA – Lagos (Nigeria)
The report by the International Monetary Fund that the naira is currently under pressure and that Nigeria is free to seek loan from the Fund to stabilise the currency if it considers a good option is one of the trending stories in Nigerian newspapers on Monday.
The Punch reports that the International Monetary Fund has said the naira is currently under pressure and Nigeria is free to seek loan from the Fund to stabilise the currency if it considers a good option.
The Washington-based lender however noted that recent exchange reforms and other steps taken by the Nigerian authorities were in order.
It also expressed support for Olayemi Cardoso-led Central Bank of Nigeria’s last week’s decision to halt the eight-year foreign exchange ban on cement, rice, poultry products and 40 other items. The past administration of the CBN had imposed the forex ban in 2015.
The made this known at the World Bank Group/International Monetary Fund Meeting in Marrakech, Morocco.
IMF said inflation in Nigeria was till high at 26 per cent in August while the naira continued to be under pressure.
The local currency, which fell from about 450/dollar to an average of 760/dollar following the exchange reforms of the President Bola Tinubu, has continued to drop at the parallel market.
The local currency plunged to 1045/dollar on Thursday.
The newspaper says that Telecommunication firms have issued fresh threats to withdraw Unstructured Supplementary Service Data service if banks do not pay their N120bn debt owed to them.
According to the telcos, the issue has dragged on for too long and a court resolution might be needed since the banks do not seem to be ready to clear the debt. The Chairman, Association of Licensed Telecoms Operators of Nigeria, Gbenga Adebayo, disclosed this over the weekend while speaking to journalists.
This new revelation is coming despite a recent resolution by the telcos and banks to settle the USSD issue that has been lingering for about four years.
He said, “I think is just best to withdraw the services. On this issue of USSD debt, if parties have to go to court to get a final resolution, so be it. This is because every effort that is being made by everyone, where we move one step forward, several steps backward, is not going to work.
“This is a commercial agreement that went south. This agreement has a provision for third-party intervention, whether arbitration or heading for the Court of Law, if it is allowed to take its own life, parties will decide where to go. Instead of going to meetings in Abuja with the minister or the CBN, parties would decide where to go according to the agreement.”
Adebayo highlighted that the matter is commercial, and it is appropriate to withdraw the service. He however noted that political interference has ensured that telcos have not been able to enforce the commercial terms.
He stated, “So when you open commercial agreement to political interference, you get into this kind of problem. That is why we say emphatically that some issues, including price review, should be left to market forces, not to be determined by government because it is not sustainable.”
The Guardian reports that Technology firm, CDIAL, has unveiled indigenous mobile, a revolutionary app designed to celebrate linguistic diversity, empower multilingual communication, and preserve cultural heritage.
The indigenous mobile currently supports five key languages – Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba, Pidgin, and Standard English.
According to the Founder of CDIAL, Olayinka Iyinolakan, said, “Indigenous Mobile is not just another mobile app. It’s a cultural bridge that connects people through the beauty of language.
“This innovative platform enables users to communicate effortlessly in their native languages, ensuring that no one is left behind in the digital era.
“With support for five prominent languages, Indigenous Mobile fosters inclusivity and breaks down language barriers.
“Bid farewell to language barriers and misunderstandings, Indigenous Mobile offers multilingual keyboards and predictive text for Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba, Pidgin, and Standard English. This makes it easy to connect with friends, family, and colleagues in their preferred languages,” Iyinolakan said.
The newspaper says that projections for growth in global merchandise trade in 2023 have been scaled back by economists amid a continued slump that began in the fourth quarter of 2022, according to the latest World Trade Organisation (WTO) trade forecast released recently.
According to them, the volume of world merchandise trade is now expected to grow by 0.8 per cent this year, less than half the 1.7 per cent increase forecasted in April. The 3.3 per cent growth projected for 2024 remains nearly unchanged from the previous estimate. The trade body furthermore expects real world GDP to grow by 2.6 per cent at market exchange rates in 2023 and by 2.5 per cent in 2024, as set out in WTO’s latest global trade outlook and statistics report.
The report added that world trade and output slowed abruptly in the fourth quarter of 2022 as the effects of persistent inflation and tighter monetary policy were felt in the United States, the European Union and elsewhere, and as strained property markets in China prevented a stronger post COVID-19 recovery from taking root. Together with the consequences of the war in Ukraine, these developments have cast a shadow over the outlook for trade, it said, adding that the trade slowdown appears to be broad-based, involving a large number of countries and a wide array of goods.
The report said trade growth should pick up next year accompanied by slow but stable GDP growth and sectors that are more sensitive to business cycles should stabilise and rebound as inflation moderates and interest rates start to come down.
However, signs are starting to emerge of supply chain fragmentation, which could threaten the relatively positive outlook for 2024. For example, the share of intermediate goods in world trade, an indicator of global supply chain activity, fell to 48.5 per cent in the first half of 2023, compared to an average of 51.0 per cent over the previous three years.
Further, the share of Asian bilateral partners in U.S. trade in parts and accessories, a key subset of intermediate inputs, fell to 38 per cent in the first half of 2023, down from 43 per cent in the same period of 2022.”
WTO’s Director-General, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, said: “The projected slowdown in trade for 2023 is cause for concern, because of the adverse implications for the living standards of people around the world. Global economic fragmentation would only make these challenges worse, which is why WTO members must seize the opportunity to strengthen the global trading framework by avoiding protectionism and fostering a more resilient and inclusive global economy. The global economy, and in particular poor countries, will struggle to recover without a stable, open, predictable, rules-based and fair multilateral trading system.”
GIK/APA