Bad power supply remains greatest challenge to businesses – CBN

Inefficient power supply in the country has been described as the greatest factor constraining businesses in Nigeria.

This is contained in the November 2018 edition of the Monthly Business Expectations Survey Report of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

The survey which was carried out with a sample size of 1,050 businesses comprising of small, medium and large organisations covering both import and export-oriented businesses identified six major impediments to Nigerian businesses.

Insufficient power supply was the major impediment with 64.7 points followed by high interest rate with 57.9 points. Other identified constraints include unfavourable economic climate (55.1 points), financial problems (51.2 points), unclear economic laws (51.0 points), unfavourable political climate (48.6 points), access to credit (41.3 points), and insufficient demand (41.2 points). The report was, however, unclear as to what constitutes financial problems and economic laws.

Inspite of the constraining factors identified by the survey, the respondents expressed an overwhelming optimism on the microeconomic fundamentals of the country as they indicated that their outlook on volume of total order, business activity and financial conditions (working capital) remained positive during the review period.

While the respondents expected the Naira to appreciate against the Dollar and other major currencies in the coming months, they were of the view that inflation and borrowing rate would rise.

Although unemployment rate remains high in Nigeria, the survey indicates that the respondents were optimistic that jobs would be created in the coming months with the wholesale/retail trade sectors having the highest prospects for creating jobs, followed by services (31.2 points), industrial sector (26.6 points) and construction sector with 17.5 points.

Further analysis of the survey results indicates that the services sector was more disposed to business expansion followed by wholesale/retail trade and industrial sectors with 18.8 and 8.2 index points, respectively.

Generally, in the November survey report, respondents sounded more optimistic than they did in October.