The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) will hold its 290th meeting on Monday March 20 and Tuesday March 21, 2023.
According to the announcement made by the CBN, the meeting will hold at the MPC Meeting Room, 11th Floor, CBN Head Office, Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
The MPC is the CBN’s highest policy making body which has the mandates to review economic and financial conditions of the economy, assess CBN monetary policy framework and adopt changes when necessary, as well as determine the right policy stance in the short to medium term.
The committee will meet five times in 2023, according to the CBN calendar. Having met on January 23rd and 24th, 2023, the March 20th meeting will be the second meeting of the MPC this year, and will be coming at a time of dire scarcity of the naira within the Nigerian economy.
The CBN calendar shows that the MPC will hold another meeting on May 22 and 23; July 24 and 25; September 25 and 26, and November 20 and 21, 2023.
At the January 2023 MPC meeting, the body agreed to raise the Monetary Policy Rate(MPC), the benchmark interest rate by 50 basis points to 17 percent; retained the asymmetric corridor at +100/-700 basis points, retained the cash reserve ratio(CRR) at 32.50 percent, and retained liquidity ratio at 30 percent.
“To modulate the sacrifice-ratio, and based on available projections, I am inclined for a reduced pace of tightening at this meeting. Overall, I note that global downturn continued to threaten domestic outturns, as energy constraints push inflation to harmful heights.
“Further monetary tightening to reverse high inflation expectation is paramount at this moment, although such hike could be at lesser pace to balance output concerns. I note that earlier tightening measures are yielding desired results as inflation impetus is waning. I advocate a cautious action that returns inflation within tolerable levels and minimises output loss,” Godwin Emefiele, CBN governor, announced in January 2023 at the end of the MPC meeting.
