Nigeria Secures $2.2bn World Bank Loan at 1% Interest Rate

Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister for the Economy, Mr Wale Edun, has revealed that Nigeria has qualified for a $2.25 billion World Bank facility at 1% interest rate.

He made the disclosure at a joint media briefing with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Dr Yemi Cardoso, to wrap up the 2024 World Bank-IMF Spring Meetings in Washington DC, United States. The loan has 40-year maturity and 10 years moratorium for repayment.

According to him, discussions on the facility were being fine-tuned, adding that high-level meetings have been held to achieve it and equally widen foreign direct investment flows into the country.

“The loan is almost a grant. It’s part of what we discussed here. “Investors are talking about building factories and creating jobs. There is greater interest and willingness to invest in Nigeria. We had robust engagements with the private sector. We spoke with foundations, like Bill Gates, Rockefeller, etc.

“We spoke extensively on funding, on electricity generation, tackling bad roads, closing infrastructure gaps, etc”. Edun also spoke on plans to attract long term funds for long term uses to grow the economy. This will help in the area of mortgage.

“Social investment programmes have been revamped to help the poor. There is N1 million being granted to nano industries and all that”, he said. Edun said there is a relatively expensive set of incentives, duty waivers, and exemptions on taxes that cost about one percent of Nigeria’s gross domestic product (GDP).

According to the minister, the country is looking to increase the tax-to-GDP ratio to 18 percent from about 10 percent in a few years. He said the government is also looking to ramp up overall government revenue from about 12 percent to “about 22 percent, to virtually double it.”.

“So, you might say how this would be done,” he said. The minister said the country has a tax reform and fiscal reform committee that will roll out a list of measures to improve efficiency in the tax sector and increase revenue.