Fitch Ratings has affirmed Nigeria’s Long-term foreign and local currency Issuer Default Ratings (IDR) at ‘BB-’ and ‘BB’ respectively with a Stable Outlook. The agency has also affirmed Nigeria’s Short-term foreign currency IDR at ‘B’. The Country Ceiling has been affirmed at ‘BB-’.

Eke U. Ubaiji, is the Executive Secretary, Nigerian Association of Small and Medium Enterprises. In this interview with Saturday Vanguard Business, he points out government’s efforts to proffer suggestions on how government can resuscitating the dwindling fortune of the economy as well as lamented slow pace of development generally and also reasons while the economy is not developing as expected. Excerpts:

Nigerian banks, merchants and other payments industry stakeholders expressed renewed enthusiasm for the country’s planned move towards a cashless society, after attending a series of intensive workshops hosted by global electronic payments company,MasterCard Worldwide.

The African Development Bank said it is committed to supporting agricultural cooperatives in Africa achieve sustainable improvement in food security.

Managing Di- rector of Nigerian Export Import Bank (NEXIM), Mr. Robert Orya, has visited the facilities of Origin Group in Lagos. The visit, according to him, was a duty inspection visit to selected private sector players in a bid to boost the development of the non-oil sector through export promotion programmes of value added products.