CBN to begin payment of FX rebate to exporters

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) will this week begin the payment of rebate for foreign exchange export proceeds or earnings to exporters, Godwin Emefiele said on Friday.

The banking and finance regulator had promised to pay N65 bonus for every $1 of repatriated non-oil export proceeds sold at the Investors and Exporters (I&E) window, the official FX rate.

“So the first set of disbursement for the payment of the rebate has been assured and will be done by next week. We are actually trying to make it public so that Nigerians can know that we can encourage other exporters to say that the era when you export and expect your rebate and it never comes in two, three, years is gone. We are determined to make sure it succeeds. With the kind of numbers we hear from the banks we are very excited that this is working very well,” Emefiele said.

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He explained that the idea of the RT200 was that the country cannot continue to rely on revenues coming from crude to fund the import obligation in the country.

Emefiele noted that there are four sources through which foreign currency can be raised to fund import obligations of the country. These include revenue from crude, export proceeds, Diaspora remittances and maybe foreign and direct portfolio investments into the country.

“We are saying that we have relied enough on earnings from crude, which has taken too much bashing and we begin to give respite to earnings from crude and think about earnings from exports.

“That is why we are saying we would encourage companies to export, encourage the banks themselves to set up aggressive export development officers and export development desk where the officers will be looking for companies that want to go into export of any items. When you export them the dollar comes in and it is sold into the new window and you earn N65 as rebate,” he said.