Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) officials believe that the new remittance policy of the federal government will lead to the country’s foreign remittances rising to as much as $34.89bn by 2023.
Up until last year, remittance recipients were only able to collect their cash in naira but with there currently being a chronic scarcity of foreign exchange in Nigeria, the CBN altered its policy, saying transactions that are eligible under the new law are in line with global best practices. In December 2020, the CBN instructed all international money transfer operators to allow recipients of remittances to have the option of receiving their money in foreign exchange if they so desired.
CBN and PricewaterhouseCoopers officials now believe that remittance flows could reach $34.89bn by 2023 if the policies were right. In a recent forecast, PwC noted that the growth in remittances is subject to global economic forces, which could spur or hinder growth of remittance flows, growth in emigration, economic conditions of residing countries and poor economic fundamentals in the Nigerian economy.
Its forecast revealed that as of 2017, the highest remittance came from the US, followed by the UK, Cameroon, Italy, Ghana, Spain, Germany, Benin Republic, Ireland and Canada. Nigeria’s diaspora remittance in 2019 was put at $21bn by the World Bank and it was forecast that they should have risen to $27.66bn in 2020 but experts believe the Covid-19 pandemic could curtail this.
A PwC spokesman said: “Several countries across the globe, including Nigeria, have developed plans towards attracting investment from their diaspora community for national development. Essentially, the extent to which the diaspora contributes to the developmental affairs of a country will be determined largely by trust.
