The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has reported that while businesses remain optimistic about the macroeconomic environment, they anticipate further depreciation of the naira this month and in the first quarter of 2025.
In its November 2024 Business Expectation Survey Report, the CBN highlighted that firms expressed a pessimistic outlook regarding business activity levels, financial conditions, access to credit, total order volumes, and average capacity utilization.
It stated: “The overall confidence index (CI) on the macroeconomy indicated that businesses were optimistic in November 2024.
“Businesses expect the Naira to depreciate in the current month, next month and next 3 months but appreciate in the next 6 months.
“The optimism on business outlook in the current month is driven by the opinion of respondents from all the sectors.
“The Construction Sector expressed optimism on own operations in the review month.
“The outlook of respondents on the volume of business activities, the volume of total order, financial conditions, and access to credit were negative in the review month. volume of business activity respondents expressed optimism on volume of business activity for the next month and subsequent periods under review.”
The report indicated that businesses plan to increase hiring in December 2024, with the agriculture sector showing the greatest potential for expansion.
In contrast, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), in its latest Consumer Expectation Survey Report, revealed that consumers were pessimistic about the macroeconomic environment in November.
The survey noted that households anticipate higher costs for transportation, rent, vehicle purchases, housing, and medical expenses this month.
Additionally, 61.1% and 57.6% of respondents believe that while prices of non-durable and durable household items remain high, they are expected to decline this month and next month, respectively.