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Policymakers at the Central Bank of Nigeria are poised to leave borrowing costs unchanged at their third meeting of the year to gauge the durability of a recent slowdown in inflation.
All seven economists in a Bloomberg survey expect Governor Olayemi Cardoso to keep the key interest rate at 27.5% when he delivers the 12-member monetary policy committee’s decision after 2 p.m. at a briefing in Abuja, the capital.
A revamp of the consumer-price index by the statistics bureau in January led the MPC to pull the handbrake on a rate hiking cycle to gain clarity on the direction of inflation.
While it cooled for a third straight month in June to 22.2%, both food and core inflation — a sign of underlying price pressures — quickened slightly.
Though “confidence has improved and the naira has regained ground, which could justify a rate cut,” the bank will likely “hold and wait for more favorable inflation data before cutting,” Bryan Carter, head of emerging markets debt at HSBC Global Asset Management, said in an email.
The MPC will also seek to assess the impact US President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs that are due to come into effect on Aug. 1 will have on trade, investment flows and global growth.
It will probably also be concerned by an increase in money supply.
Funds shared between the federal government, states and local councils jumped to a record 1.81 trillion naira ($1.2 billion) in June from 1.65 trillion naira a month earlier.
Cardoso has previously said a surge in liquidity levels in the banking system from such distributions highlight the need for tight monetary conditions to avoid renewed inflationary pressures.
A rate cut may come later in the year, especially if the naira’s 3% appreciation against the dollar since June further tames price increases.
Economists at Rand Merchant Bank and Oxford Economics predict the CBN may start easing at its September meeting.
“Policymakers would prefer to see stronger evidence of a decisive cool-down in price growth before trimming the benchmark interest rate,” Irmgard Erasmus, senior financial economist at Oxford Economics, said in a client note.
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