The Monetary Policy Committee of the Central Bank of Nigeria has voted to increase the benchmark interest rate by 100 basis points to 17.5 per cent.
The CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, revealed this while reading the communiqué of the first MPC meeting of the year on Tuesday.
It would be recalled that this would be the fifth time the apex bank would increase the interest rate ,ignoring the voices advice of manufacturers and some key stakeholders.
The apex bank cited that the previous increases were beginning to yield results with the slight drop in the inflation rate recorded in December 2022, as there was a need to keep tightening its fiscal policy.
The CBN keeps the asymmetric corridor at +100/-700 basis points around the MPR and also retained the CRR at 32.5 per cent, while the liquidity ratio was kept at 30 per cent.
The apex bank had increased the MPR from 11.5 per cent earlier last year to 16.5 per cent across four consecutive rate hikes in 2022.
