Central Bank of Nigeria's (CBN) governor Godwin Emefiele gives a press conference on the naira devaluation during a media briefing in Abuja on June 15, 2016. Nigeria's central bank said today it will ease currency controls and allow the naira to devalue as the country works to attract investment amid a worsening economic outlook. Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor Godwin Emefiele said in a televised speech from Abuja that the currency market will be "purely market driven". / AFP / PHILIP OJISUA (Photo credit should read PHILIP OJISUA/AFP/Getty Images)
Andy Nssien
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has reported that the overall business confidence index (CI) on the macro economy rose to 24.8 points, from the previous month’s level, even as the business outlook for October surged to 64.5 points indicating more confidence.
This report appears to be at variance with the expectation of business outlook at a period the country’s political milieu is heated up on account of on-going primaries being conducted by various political parties.
However, the September business expectation survey conducted by the CBN, covering the services, industry, wholesale/retail trade and construction sectors with the respondent firms made up of small, medium and large organizations in both import- and export-oriented businesses, said the optimism on the macro economy in the current month was driven by the opinion of respondents from different sectors. These were; services (16.2 points), industrial (6.0 points),wholesale/retail trade (1.9 points) and construction sectors (0.6 points), whereas the drivers of the optimism for next month were services (38.3 points), industrial (18.8 points), wholesale/retail trade (4.9 points) and construction (2.5points)
According to the survey, the positive outlook by type of business in September 2018 were driven by businesses that were neither import- nor export-oriented (17.8 points), both import- and export-oriented (3.6points) import-oriented (2.8 points), and those that are export-related (0.6 points).
On own operations by sector, businesses expressed optimism in September 2018 when compared to the previous month.
Respondents from services and industrial sectors expressed relatively more optimism on own operations in the current month with indices of 9.6 and 2.1 points, respectively when compared with 8.1 and -1.1 points reported in August 2018, respectively.
