By OMOH GABRIEL, with Agency reports
LAGOS — THE Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, sees no need for a depreciation of the naira and will continue to focus its monetary policy on controlling inflation, Sarah Alade, Deputy Governor, CBN, told newsmen in London, yesterday.

It would be recalled that CBN had maintained the naira exchange rate in a band of plus or minus three per cent around N150 to the dollar at its bi-weekly foreign exchange auctions for more than a year, although the rate at the inter-bank market has been more volatile.

Alade said: “The mid-point is still N150. We still want to stay within the band… If the fundamentals require us to change the mid-point we will.”

She added that: “We do not think depreciation is in the interests of the economy, because of the high import dependency we have.”Nigeria’s monetary policy committee unexpectedly raised its benchmark interest rate by 50 basis points last month, having hiked the rate by a full percentage point in March.

“We are putting all our efforts at moderating inflation. The monetary stance is one of tightening,” Alade said.

The National Assembly passed the N4.484 trillion budget for 2011 last month, trimming its spending plans from a more expansionary proposal. But the plans still include higher recurrent spending than spending on new capital projects.

Central Bank Governor, Mr. Lamido Sanusi, has repeatedly warned of the damage loose fiscal policy could do to the Nigerian economy.

“The problem for us is not the size of the budget, it’s the composition,” Alade said. “We would like to see more capital spending to create infrastructure that is needed, to create jobs, rather than being heavy on the recurrent side,” she stated.

Meanwhile, Azeri state energy firm, SOCAR, is marketing crude from the new Ebok offshore field in Nigeria operated by British oil and gas company, Afren.

Socar sold the first 500,000-barrel cargo of the heavy sweet, Ebok crude, to a refiner about three weeks ago at a price related to Atlantic Basin benchmark dated Brent, said Ludwig Hachfeld, project director of Socar trading, on the sidelines of the Asia Oil & Gas Conference in Kuala Lumpur.

Production from the field is expected to reach between 30,000-40,000 barrels of oil per day (bpd) in coming, but Hachfeld declined to give a timeline. Output at Ebok reached 17,000 bpd, Afren said last month. The company also owns fields in Ghana, Tanzania and Ethiopia.