Minister of Finance, Wale Edun has stated that the government’s efforts at food production is crucial to economic growth.
According to him, food is a major driver of inflation which when made affordable, can drop inflation and stabilise the exchange rate.
His words: “Food is 50% of the Consumer Price Index. In fact, we would say food is the core index, but it has sort of become the non-core because it has become variable and unpredictable. But you can imagine we have inflation of over 30% as we speak now and it is coming down.
“You can imagine what a real, successful food production outcome would do to bring down inflation, and that will bring down interest rates, that would strengthen the exchange rate, and it would enable a basis for you, the private sector amongst us here, to invest even more, because it will become affordable to borrow.”
Edun made this statement yesterday at the Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zones (SAPZ)-1 High Level Implementation Acceleration Dialogue and State Steering/Technical Committee workshop in Abuja.
The workshop was organised by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security in collaboration with Development Financing Institutions (DFIs), including the African Development Bank (AfDB), International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB).
