This means that Nigeria’s foreign reserves grew by over $10 billion just in the last 12 months.

He remained optimistic about the future saying “if we remain resolute with our efforts, policies and actions, we can attain a foreign reserves position of about $40 billion by the end of 2018”.

He also noted that, “The accretion in reserves does not only reflect increased inflow but also our shrewd forex demand management strategy. When we introduced a policy restricting 41 items from our forex markets, we were called all manner of names.

“Today, among the benefits of that policy is the considerable decline in our import bills. From an average of about $5.5 billion, our monthly import bill has fallen consistently to $2.1 billion in 2016 and $1.9 billion by half year 2017.

“For one, our import bill may have fallen but our manufacturing and agriculture sectors still have a long way to go if we must attain self-sufficiency in those sectors. To date, the bank has committed close to N45.5 billion under the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme (ABP) with active participation across 30 states of the federation.”

“I expect that the exchange rate will not only be stable but would begin to appreciate against major currencies. The adverse competitiveness outcome, which such appreciation may entail would be adequately mitigated by proactive policies to ensure that our balance of payments position is not undermined.”