The World Bank has said that African countries with double-digit inflation and weakened domestic currencies such as Nigeria, Angola and Sierra Leone, will maintain a high interest rate for a long period and may even increase it. The bank stated this in its latest Africa’s Pulse report focusing on how the inflation outlook varied across countries on the continent. At the last Monetary Policy Committee of the Central Bank of Nigeria, the benchmark interest rate was hiked by 50 basis points to 27.25 per cent in a bid to rein in inflation. Already, the Bretton Woods organisation has disclosed that the naira was among the worst-performing currencies in Sub-Saharan Africa in 2024. The World Bank further highlighted that demand for dollars, driven by financial institutions, non-financial end-users, and money managers, had exacerbated the pressure on the naira.

Source: Ethiopian News October 17, 2024 22:53 UTC