As the number of Nigeria’s confirmed Covid 19 cases rose to 30 yesterday, the Bankers’ Committee arm of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has jacked up its stimulus package to N3.5 trillion just as it listed 10 pharmaceutical firms to benefit from N100 billion funding facilities.

The CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, who disclosed this at the end of a special Bankers Committee meeting on Saturday in Lagos, stated there would be “additional N100billion intervention in healthcare loans to pharmaceutical companies, healthcare practitioners intending to expand/build capacity; N1trillion in loans to boost local manufacturing and production across critical sectors.”

The phmarmaceutical companies granted the facilities in both Naira and foreign exchange, to enable them procure raw materials and equipment to boost local drug production, are Emzor, Fidson, GSK, May & Baker, Unique Pharma, Swiss Pharma, Nimeth, Sagar, Orange Drugs, Dana Pharma Plc.

Emefiele lamented that the Coronavirus pandemic has disrupted global supply chains of drugs as dominant drug supply channels from China and India, as well as many countries have or are planning to ban export of drugs and medical supplies from their countries, saying “clearly, we have no choice but to produce these items locally,” he said.

He then announced further measures aimed at boosting export promotion and /or import substitution to position Nigeria as a key global producer and build a self-sufficient economy. These include the financial system’s implementation and operationalisation of the policy measures earlier announced by the apex bank:

These included “additional moratorium of one year on CBN intervention facilities; interest rate reduction on intervention facilities from 9 per cent to five per cent; creation of N50 billion targeted credit facility for affected households and SMEs; granting regulatory forbearance to banks to restructure terms of facilities in affected sectors; strengthening the Loan Deposit Ratio (LDR) policy which is encouraging significant extra lending from banks.”

To improve forex supply, the committee approves the sale of hard currencies by both local and international oil companies directly to the CBN instead of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation(NNPC).

Emefiele reeled out the rest of the interventions to include: “Improving foreign exchange supply to the CBN by directing all oil companies(international and domestic) and all related companies(oil service) to sell forex to CBN and no longer NNPC; activation of the N1.5 trillion infraco project for building critical infrastructure; additional N100billion intervention in healthcare loans to pharmaceutical companies, healthcare practitioners intending to expand/build capacity; N1trillion in loans to boost local manufacturing and production across critical sectors.

“The combination of these measures amounts to over N3.5trillion in stimulus to the Nigerian economy to ameliorate the pains arising from the Covid 19 health and economic crisis. Given that this crisis is first and foremost a public health crisis, we are paying particular attention to our health industry.The global supply chains have been disrupted, including dominant drug supply channels from China and India.