We Won’t Allow Exporters Sabotage Our Forex Repatriation Policy – CBN

The Central Bank of Nigeria has again insisted that exporters must repatriate proceeds of their activities to improve dollar supply in the country, saying it will not renege on its earlier position.

The CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, said this on Tuesday during the Monetary Policy Committee meeting in Abuja.

The apex bank had recently said it would prohibit importers who were yet to repatriate their export proceeds, from the Nigerian banking services effective from January 31, 2021.

The lender has a policy that requires exporters to repatriate exports within 90 days for oil and gas and 180 days for non-oil exports. Failure to do that constitutes a breach of the extant regulation.

Explaining further on the directive issued to exporters, Emefiele said the CBN would provide all the support needed to provide dollars for exporters to conduct their activities, adding that those exporters have obligations to repatriate the proceeds.

He said, “What we are saying is that going forward, we will give a lot more support to export sector financing at concessionary rates so that these people and companies can generate export proceeds that would come to fund our obligations in the Investors and Exporters Window, that is what we are saying.

“We are going to ensure that if you are an exporter, you must complete the Nigerian Export Proceeds form, because if you want to import tangible items into Nigeria today, you fill form M. You want to pay for intangible items, you fill form A.”

The apex bank chief disclosed that the lender has engaged the Nigerian Customs and the shipping lines to ensure no exporter is allowed to carry out activities without completing the NXP form.

“The NXP is the only way we can regulate the volume of export activities taking place in the country. Through NXP, we will know those who have repatriated or have not repatriated their proceeds into the country,” he said.

Emefiele said the lender has been pleading with exporters to repatriate their export proceeds in line with new guidelines.

He said, “The Central Bank will not tolerate it if you conduct an export activity and you keep the dollar abroad. It is by law mandatory that you must repatriate those proceeds into Nigeria. If you refuse to, the Central Bank has the power to by law prevent you from conducting banking activity in the Nigerian banking industry and we will do so.”

He insisted that defaulters only have January 31, 2020 to comply with the directive issued to them.

“We cannot all be calling on the Central Bank, where is dollar to conduct your import operations and at the same time there is law that says that if you conduct an export activity you must repatriate the dollar home for others who want to import to conduct their import activities and what you choose to do is to keep your dollars abroad; we will not allow that,” he added.

On Diaspora remittance, he said the CBN would focus on generating billions of dollars to fund government obligations.

“I am not even expecting $20bn, if we get up to $10bn or $15bn, I can say it will help the Nigerian economy,” Emefiele added.

He said revenue from crude, support from foreign investors both portfolio and direct investor, Diaspora remittances and export sector support are the major sources the government could raise revenue to fund its obligations.

He said the government before now has thrown more weight on the price of crude and foreign direct investments as major sources of foreign exchange.

Emefiele said less attention has been given to Diaspora remittances and export sector support.