Total direct remittances to the country fell by $309.52 million or 16.69 per cent to $1.55 billion in the first nine months of this year compared to $1.86 billion in the corresponding period of 2023, latest data from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has shown.
New Telegraph’s analysis of data on international payments for the week of September 30, 2024, released by the apex bank, over the weekend, indicated that total direct remittances to the country increased to $230.30 million in September compared to $131.05 million and $72.29 million in August and July respectively.
For the second quarter of 2024, the country recorded total direct remittances of $270.52 million in June, $365.44 million in May and $193.31 million in April.
In addition, the CBN data shows that total direct remittances amounted to $282.62 million in the first three months of this year.
Further analysis of the data shows that Nigeria recorded a total sum of $1.98 billion in total direct remittances in 2023 compared to $2.166 billion in the previous year.
In its latest “Migration and Development Brief” report, released in June, the World Bank stated although remittance flows to Nigeria fell by 2.9 percent to $19.5 billion in 2023, the country still accounted for around 35 percent of total remittance inflows of $54 billion to subSaharan Africa last year.
The report said: “Remittance flows to Sub-Saharan Africa were nearly 1.5 times the size of FDI flows in 2023, and relatively more stable.
FDI flows to the region reached $38.6 billion in 2023, driven primarily by greenfield project announcements in Kenya and Nigeria (UNCTAD 2024). “The largest recipients of remittances in the region during 2023—measured in US dollar terms—include Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, and Zimbabwe.
Remittances have become the most important foreign exchange earner in several countries.” Indeed, with 1.7 million migrants from Nigeria in the diaspora as of 2020, according to the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, present and past management of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) have introduced various initiatives to boost remittance flows.
For instance, under its current Governor, Olayemi Cardoso, who assumed office in September last year, when the nation was grappling with serious forex scarcity, the apex bank, in addition to liberalising the forex market, has focused on ensuring that International Money Transfer Operators (IMTOs), operating in the country, are allowed to play a role that would lead to a significant increase in remittance flows.
Speaking at a press conference while attending the World Bank/IMF annual meetings in Washington in October, Cardoso announced that Nigeria is considering a diaspora bond in the United States next year and is targeting remittance inflows of $1 billion a month.
He said Nigerians abroad are keen to invest and have already more than doubled the remittances they send home since the current administration began sweeping reforms last year, adding that remittance inflows, which amounted to a little above $250 million as of April this year, increased to over $600 million as of September.
Continued Online.
