The federal government has approved the establishment of an inter-agency committee to harmonise the macroeconomic assumptions that underpin government budgeting and economic planning.
The committee is expected to harmonise projections on crude
oil prices and production volumes, exchange rates, inflation and non-oil
revenue used by fiscal and monetary authorities.
The decision followed a meeting of the economic management
team (EMT) held in Abuja on Monday, chaired by Taiwo Oyedele, minister of
finance and coordinating minister of the economy.
According to a statement by the finance ministry, the move
also followed a joint budget retreat and technical validation workshop, which
partly traced budget under-performance to inconsistent assumptions used by
different agencies.
The ministry also linked budget under-performance to
occasional divergence between key projections by various authorities
responsible for economic policies.
“The committee will also work to resolve inconsistencies in
how key indicators are reported within government, to external parties and the
public,” the statement reads.
Speaking during the meeting, Oyedele said the decisions
would improve the credibility of the government’s economic planning.
“Today’s decisions tighten the link between the numbers we
plan with and the actual outturns,” the minister said.
“A single, harmonised set of assumptions across the fiscal
and monetary authorities means fewer surprises in the budget and more credible
planning for investors and all Nigerians.”
The EMT reportedly reviewed developments across the economy
and noted that real gross domestic product (GDP) growth reached 4.43 percent
year-on-year in the second quarter of 2026, the strongest quarterly growth
since the third quarter of 2024, according to the National Bureau of Statistics
(NBS).
The ministry said the team noted that external reserves rose
to more than $54 billion in early September, the highest level in nearly 18
years, based on the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) data.
According to the statement, the management team said the
naira also strengthened to its firmest level in about two years, trading in the
N1,300 region per dollar in early September.
The ministry said the EMT was further briefed that FTSE
Russell would reclassify Nigeria from “unclassified” to “frontier market”
status, effective from the market opening on September 21.
The team was also briefed that public debt remains below 40
percent of GDP, while Nigeria’s sovereign credit outlook from Moody’s has
improved from stable to positive.
“The team noted that Nigeria’s economy, measured in
purchasing-power-parity (PPP) terms at over US$ 2.2 trillion, is substantially
larger than its nominal dollar GDP, and indicative of the growth potential of
the economy towards the US$ 1 trillion nominal GDP mark by 2030,” the statement
further said.
It noted that the team agreed to revise its terms of
reference to expand its remit to include macroeconomic performance reviews,
stronger fiscal and monetary coordination, monitoring of renewed hope agenda
priorities and periodic reviews of federal government financing needs.
The team also agreed to meet monthly, with at least two
strategic sector reviews during each sitting.
“To improve the reliability of official statistics, the
ministry of finance is designated as the coordinating custodian for national
economic data, with line agencies responsible for their respective datasets as
inputs into coordinated public releases,” the statement added.
AGRICULTURE TARGETED FOR $1TRN ECONOMY
The EMT also reviewed a strategy to increase agriculture’s
contribution to Nigeria’s ambition of becoming a $1 trillion economy by 2030.
The strategy, the ministry said, includes measures to reduce
post-harvest losses, expand processing and mechanisation, strengthen export
compliance, and improve the timing of capital releases ahead of planting
seasons.
The team also reviewed financing measures for the sector,
including a planned recapitalisation of the Bank of Agriculture and a new
smallholder credit window, alongside a target to raise agriculture’s share of
private-sector credit towards 10 percent by 2030.
The EMT reviewed Nigeria’s readiness to host the creative
Africa nexus (CANEX) in November 2026 and the intra-African trade fair (IATF)
in November 2027 in Lagos.
The statement said the ministry was tasked with coordinating
funding and customs facilitation, working with the ministry of industry, trade
and investment on a consolidated action plan with named ministerial owners.
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