President Muhammadu Buhari today maintained that Nigeria will not devalue its currency. The naira exchanged at 367 to a dollar in Lagos on Friday.
“Developed countries are competing among themselves and when they devalue they compete better and manufacture and export more. But we are not competing and exporting but importing everything including toothpicks. So, why should we devalue our currency?” the President asked.
Speaking while contributing to a Presidential Panel Roundtable on Investment and Growth Opportunities at the opening session of the Africa 2016: Business for Africa, Egypt and the World at Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt.
President Buhari stressed that Nigeria being a mono-economy dependent on oil, and with a teeming unemployed youth population, the way out of the current slump in the global oil market, is for the administration to focus on agriculture and solid minerals development.
“We want to be more productive and self-sufficient in food and other basic things such as clothing. For our government, we like to encourage local production and efficiency,” Buhari said.
He added that those who have developed taste for foreign luxury goods should continue to pay for them rather than pressure government to devalue the naira.
