The Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprise has raised concerns as the Central Bank of Nigeria announced an interest rate pause at 27.50 percent.
The chief executive of CPPE and renowned economist, Dr. Muda Yusuf made this known on Tuesday in his reaction to the Monetary Policy Committee’s decision to hold the interest rate at 27.50 percent.
His comment comes as CBN MPC on Tuesday
retained all monetary policy parameters, including the cash reserve ratio (CRR) at 50 basis points for commercial banks and 16 percent for mortgage banks and the asymmetric corridor at +500/-100 basis points around the monetary policy rate.
Reacting in a telephone interview with Media Talk Africa, Yusuf expressed concerns that the country’s interest rate at 27.50 percent and CRR at 50 percent for commercial banks remained high and created stringent financing conditions for investors and the real economy.
He added that fiscal and monetary policy coordination remained imperative for macroeconomic stability in Nigeria.
“CPPE welcomes the decision of the monetary policy committee to pause the tightening of rates.
“The CPPE is concerned that both the cash reserve ratio and the monetary policy rate were already very high, creating difficult financing conditions for investors in the real economy. Hiking rates was really not an option.
“Holding rates in the context of lingering uncertainty in the global economy triggered by disruptive tariff regimes and geopolitical dynamics is understandable.
“However, fiscal and monetary policy coordination remains a critical imperative for macroeconomic stability,” the leader of the economic think tank group told Media Talk Africa.
CBN’s decision to hold the interest rate at 27.50 percent follows April’s inflation decline to 23.7 percent, according to the National Bureau of Statistics consumer price index released barely a week ago.
Media Talk Africa reports that this is the second consecutive time the apex bank has retained the interest rate; the first was in February 2025.
