‘Forex restriction on agricultural products will stimulate backward integration’

Sterling Bank Plc has said the restriction of Foreign Exchange (Forex) by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for locally produced food items will stimulate backward integration.

Sterling Bank’s Group Head (Agriculture Finance and Export), Bukola Awosanya, disclosed this at the pre-event press conference ahead of the International Agriculture Summit (IAS) in Lagos.

Awosanya said it was a good innovation by the Federal Government (FG) “because if the country continues to import, it would undermine the policies on food security.”

She said, “We are the highest producers of cassava, so restricting Forex on starch import will allow for more employment and production in the area.

“We believe that what is left is the sanitisation of the borders to check smuggling and encourage more production.”

Also speaking at the briefing, the Executive Director (Corporate and Investment Banking) of the bank, Yomi Odubiyi, said access to Forex was subsidised in Nigeria, and that if things were allowed to come in cheaply, it would be a double wormy for the country.