Nigeria plans to reweight its inflation index to 2009 from 2004 by the end of the year to reflect the impact of non-food items on prices more accurately, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) told Reuters on Monday.
Nigeria rebased its GDP on Sunday for the first time in 24 years, valuing it at $509.9 billion and enabling it to surpass South Africa as the continent’s biggest economy.
Speaking to the Reuters Africa Investment Summit, the Statistician of the Federation, Mr. Yemi Kale, said Nigeria would also reweight the inflation index to take into account the growing middle class with rising incomes.
Bringing the GDP base year to 2010, from 1990, helped it capture changes in the economy including the rise of mobile phones and Internet. The inflation reweighting will be less dramatic, but previous moves have reduced inflation estimates.
Over the past year Nigeria has seen single-digit inflation for the first time in five years, to some extent because of tamer food prices but also tight monetary policy.
Kale said food currently accounts for 60 per cent of the inflation basket and is very volatile, skewing data, compared with non-food data which is more stable.
“We are updating our records to … reflect the true macroeconomic picture of Nigeria,” Kale told the summit.
He said his office also sought to measure the impact of a halving of gasoline subsidies by the government in 2009.
The size of Nigeria’s middle class has also expanded, though it is still tiny, and with it consumption patterns have changed in favor of capital goods like cars while less is being spent comparatively on food.
“We are witnessing an increase in non-food consumption expenditure but the magnitude is what will determine the impact (on inflation),” he said.
Nigeria is Africa’s top oil producer and is heavily dependent on imports paid for by oil receipts.
Access Bank’s Total Assets Hit N1.835tn
Nume Ekeghe
Access Bank Plc’s audited results for the financial year ended December 2013 has shown that its total assets increased to N1.835 trillion, compared to the N1.745 trillion it stood as at December 2012.
The results released on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) yesterday also showed an increase in the bank’s deposit base from N1.201 trillion the previous year, to N1.33 trillion in the year under review, while its loan book rose by 33 per cent from N609 billion to N810 billion in 2013.
Access Bank’s gross earnings also climbed marginally to N206.7 billion in 2013, from N206.4 billion in 2012.
However, the bank recorded a Profit Before Tax (BPT) of N44.9 billon which is a 3.4 per cent decrease compared to the N46 billion recorded in the corresponding period in 2012.
This decline in revenue is attributed to regulatory challenges in the operating environment, some of which include the rise in the cash reserve requirements (CRR) on public sector deposits to 50 per cent from 12 per cent, reduction and removal of a number of fee income lines such as ATM and CoT charges as well as the increase in AMCON levy from 0.3 per cent to 0.5 per cent, amongst others.
Commenting on the Bank’s performance, the Group Managing Director, Herbert Wigwe said: “Access Bank’s 2013 earnings were impacted by several regulatory changes in the Nigerian banking sector. According to him, the bank’s balance sheet structure during the period further constrained growth and limited the yield on our earnings asset. He noted that despite the difficult operating environment, the bank grew its loan book to position it for improved earnings, while driving deposit mobilisation from targeted segments to further reduce cost of funds.
“I am particularly excited about the next phase of the Bank’s evolution. Having articulated our five year strategy plan, we began execution by re-aligning our SBUs to ensure that customer service and delivery are improved at all levels.
With our businesses realigned, we are now placing greater emphasis on providing services geared towards women and SMEs in Nigeria, as they underpin the next phase of economic growth. Infrastructure financing is another key focus for us going forward,” Wigwe explained.
Also, the bank’s Group Deputy Managing Director/Chief Operating Officer, Obinna Nwosu said the bank recalibrated its operating model as it leveraged on unique value propositions targeted at growing segments in the economy last year.
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The post Nigeria plans to reweight inflation appeared first on Royal Times of Nigeria Newspaper.