Nigeria’s manufacturing sector is the biggest winner of central bank policies that have forced lenders to extend more credit to the private sector.
Lending to manufacturing companies in Africa’s most-populous country from May to the end of October totaled 459.7 billion naira ($1.3 billion), the most in two decades, central bank Governor Godwin Emefiele told reporters Tuesday in the capital, Abuja.
Output from manufacturing firms was up 1.23% in the three months to September with contribution to real GDP at 8.74%, the the country’s National Bureau of Statistics said in a report last week.
“The committee urged the management of the bank to sustain its current effort to improve lending to the private sector and to explore other initiatives to provide funding to the other critical sectors of the Nigerian economy,” Emefiele said.