Nigeria Produces its Gold bars to be used as reserved instrument by CBN

       

The Central Bank Governor, Godwin Emefiele, on Thursday purchased Nigeria's first artisanally refined gold to be stored in the country's new gold reserve.

In 2019, President Buhari launched the Presidential Artisanal Gold Mining Development Initiative  (PAGMDI) with the objective to produce internationally accepted gold bars. 

The gold bar is made in accordance with the London Bullion Market Association standard for the use of gold as a reserve instrument.

Dr. Godwin Emefiele in his speech said“The Nigerian economy remains strong, remains resilient to withstand the exogenous shocks that we see around today.”

“We seize this opportunity to assure our friends both locally and internationally to say that the Nigerian government supported by the monetary authorities is doing everything possible to diversify the base of the Nigerian economy and in the coming weeks and months, Nigerians and the world will see more that is going to be done in improving the output from our agricultural sector, improving productivity from the manufacturing sector, doing everything to make it easy for goods to move from farms to market in Nigeria,” he said.

The Executive Secretary, Solid Minerals Development Fund (SMDF), Fatima Shinkafi, said that PAGMI will also encourage private sector investment. She said“They have a space to participate in PAGMI and the laws and regulations are there. We will sensitize people together with the Ministry and the States, who have been very supportive as well.“We have started a good journey towards improving the economy and we are moving at a very fast speed.

“I hope that this will translate into a better life, most importantly for the households that we intend to impact in terms of making better standards of living for individual families that we are supporting directly and indirectly with the artisanal miners,” she said.