These are some of the germane reasons President Muhammadu Buhari’s directive “to raise funds to support agriculture and industry at single digit interest rate” deserves support. Consequently, if the government desires single digit lending rates for the development of agriculture and industry, it can intervene by raising substantial funds and disburse same at preferred single digit rates. CBN for instance, has over the years, put in place huge amounts of money running into hundreds of billions of Naira, at single digit interest rate, to support agriculture and industry. In addition to these, the CBN in collaboration with banks has set up a fund for agriculture and non-oil exports which businesses can access either as equity (interest-free) or loan (at single digit interest rate). The actual and sustainable solution to the problem of high interest rate is managing the economy to be productively functional.

Source: The Guardian January 04, 2018 04:07 UTC