Nigeria’s foreign exchange outflow to the United Kingdom for study expenses increased to $2.5 billion in 2022, OduNews reports.
This was disclosed by the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele, at the 57th annual bankers’ dinner of the Charted Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (CIBN) which was held in Lagos.
Emefiele noted that due to the number of student visas issued to Nigeria by the United Kingdom (U.K), annual foreign exchange outflow rose significantly.
This was even as he revealed that despite the Nigerian FX market being in the middle of a serious crunch, the number of student visas issued to Nigerians by the UK alone increased from an annual average of about 8,000 visas as of 2020 to nearly 66,000 in 2022.
Emefiele while noting that the FX crisis was straining the country’s reserves and stifling the value of the Naira, added that the official foreign exchange receipt from crude oil sales into the country’s official reserves has dried up steadily from above $3.0 billion monthly in 2014 to an absolute zero dollars today.
“To put this drawback into perspective, it is equally no news that the number of student visas issued to Nigerians by the UK alone has increased from an annual average of about 8,000 visas as of 2020 to nearly 66,000 in 2022, which implies an eight-fold surge to about US$2.5 billion annually in study-related foreign exchange outflow to the UK alone”, the CBN boss said.
He maintained that it was against the backdrop of the worsening mismatch between foreign exchange market demand and supply, and the need to boost foreign exchange earnings that the CBN and the Bankers’ Committee initiated the RT200 programme in February 2022.
According to him, the rebate scheme of the programme has seen the apex bank reimbursed a total of N78.4 billion, a fair price, he said will stabilise the country’s FX market.
Emefiele thereafter revealed that the Naira-4-Dollar scheme initiative which reflects the CBN’s efforts to boost migrant remittances into the Nigerian economy has been successful in increasing remittance inflows through its registered International Money Transfer Organization (IMTOs).
