Nigeria’s Minister of Finance, Mr. Wale Edun, stated on Thursday, September 19, 2024, that the economic reforms used by the Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration are yielding positive results as the country recorded a net inflow of $16.45 billion into its foreign reserve in the first seven months of the year.

He made the statement at the 2024 edition of the Access Bank Annual Corporate Forum themed: “Nigeria’s Economic Rebirth: Hopes and Implications”, in Lagos.

He said that the federal government intends to fund 360,000 farmers as part of efforts to put an end to the ravaging food inflation while giving the economy a rebirth.

He said: “Seventeen months or so, we rethink the reforms from the evidence, from the data, from the details that we have in our hands, the reforms are yielding fruits.

“The economy is beginning to turn a corner and I think we all are witnesses to the improved macroeconomic stability, stable exchange rates, increasing government revenue, positive and increasing trade balances, current account balances and the total reconfiguration and the revamping of government revenues as well as the greater emphasis on expenditure.

“We have relative currency stability, and of course, the all important margin of the rates. We’ve seen a gradual elimination of multiple exchange rates.

“We also have foreign exchange liquidity. The gross reserves are up. There has been a net inflow in the first seven months of this year of about $2.35 billion every month.

“On the fiscal side as well, government revenues are growing. And the key to government revenue is not so much that the government has revenue to compete with the private sector. It is the fundamentals, the social and the key infrastructure spending, the social safety net spending.

“And, historically, our figures are low. Our tax to GDP ratio is as low as 10 percent. Our revenue to GDP is also around 15 percent.”

Edun added that FG is working to ramp up crude oil production as a buffer for the fiscal revenues, adding that the country is on track to produce the targeted 2 million crude oil barrels per day (bpd) before the end of 2024.

He also disclosed that the FG plans to fund 360,000 farmers with resources to cultivate on 360,000 hectares of land by January 2025.

“Apart from quickly ramping up oil production, one of the key areas is that in the agricultural sector, not just for raw output, but for putting us on the path to industrialisation, just as the way as put in as a step taken to have local refining of petroleum products what’s come back after so many decades is an important step in the road to industrialization in agriculture.

“The plan and the key target is for this dry season after a very successful dry season harvest earlier this year, there was disappointment in the wet season harvest and that’s the reason we have not completed and the result is a continued elevated level of food prices.

“So the plan this time around, and we must be determined in its succeeding, 360,000 farmers will be funded, assisted, mobilized and resourced to farm 360,000 hectares and from that we are estimating 1.4 million metric tons by next January, February when the harvest comes of maize, wheat, cassava and tubers.

“And that is a key success factor, a key indicator that we must hit as a target. And everybody has a role to play in producing food.”