The current economic woes of Nigeria has worsened with a further depletion of the foreign reserves of the country.
Udo Udoma
The Minister of Budget and National Planning, Udo Udoma, says Nigeria’s foreign reserves have reduced from $26.51 billion from the second quarter of 2016 to $24.74 billion in September, according to Premium Times.
Mr. Udoma said this at the 57th annual conference of Nigeria Economic Society (NES) with the theme “the developmental state and diversification of the Nigerian economy’’ on Tuesday in Abuja.
He said Nigeria had revenue and foreign currency concentration problems, adding that diversification was the only solution. The minister said due to four strategic pipeline terminals that were blow up, Nigeria had been unable to achieve its 2016 Budget production target of 2.2 million barrels a day.
Mr. Udoma said in August, the country was barely able to produce 1.1 million barrels.
“Last week production level rose up to 1.7 million barrels, still a far cry from the country’s target of 2.2 million barrel.
“We are taking a number of immediate measures to raise revenues to strategically spend our way out of recession.
“We are taking measures to address the disruption in Niger Delta to restore production.
“We are fast tracking our efforts to raise foreign currency loans that we have projected in the 2016 budget, from AfDB, World Bank, Chinese Exim Bank as well as Euro Bond issue.
“We are happy to note that the president of AfDB has announced that we should expect, among other facilities, a budget support of $1 billion dollars next month,’’ Mr. Udoma said.