Production of notes, coins abroad stopy by 2007
 

Daily Triumph

09.09.05

Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) would no longer print bank notes or mint coins abroad after December 2006, CBN governor, Prof. Charles Soludo, said yesterday.

In his submission at a stakeholders’ meeting organised by the Senate Committee on Banking, Insurance and Financial Institutions, Soludo said the deadline had been December 2007 originally.

He attributed the revised deadline to improvement in the operations of the Nigerian Security Printing and Minting Company (NSPMC) since its acquisition by CBN.

Soludo described the transformation of NSPMC as tremendous, saying competent professionals now populate the board, resulting in a 30 per cent increase in output within one month of its inauguration.

The Mint, he said, would soon expand its operations with a view to capturing the market in the West African sub-region.

On the proposed N1,000 notes, Soludo said the apex bank had experimented with both polymer-based material and paper, and decided to produce only in paper, to meet the October deadline for issuing the notes.

The CBN boss said restructuring of sizes of the various currency denominations and coining the lower denominations was being considered.

He described as “unsustainable” the fact that it cost N8 to print a N5 note.

He said the country’s current foreign reserves stood at 26.9 billion U.S. dollars, “the highest in the nation’s history and the highest in sub-Saharan Africa yesterday’’.

“We are fundamentally trying to change the way the foreign reserve is managed. Our proposals will soon come to the National Assembly in the form of a bill,’’ Soludo said.

Other stakeholders represented at the meeting included Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation, NICON and the National Board for Community Banks.