World Bank Promises To Increase Financial Support For Nigeria

The World Bank announced on Thursday that it will increase the financial support for Nigeria, just as it lauded the economic reforms under President Bola Tinubu's administration.

World Bank's Managing Director of Operations Anna Bjerde called partnership with Nigeria as "comprehensive and very fruitful" after meeting Tinubu at the State House in Abuja, Punch reported.

"The outcome is that the World Bank will continue to support the reforms of President Tinubu's administration through the supportive instrument that we have and we will be stepping up our financial support to Nigeria in line with all the different initiatives that are being taken and all the needs that the economy has," she said.

Bjerde went on to share that she is optimistic about the bank's program in the country as she is already witnessing it grow.

"While we already have a large program, from this visit we already see that the program will grow from there," she said. "I have been pleased with the discussions we had over the last meeting with the PBAT."

Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy Wale Edun, on the other hand, also spoke with the media after the meeting between Western and Central Africa Ministers of Finance, which was co-hosted by Nigeria and the World Bank.

Edun called the two-day meeting a mini summit, where they discussed "issues of development and increasing the level of concessional financing to West and Central Africa."

He added that the bank will provide better support for digitization and technological development of Nigeria's economy.

"Emphasizes were laid on increasing resources to Nigeria and to West and Central Africa and also to improve electricity access, growing the social safety net providing greater support for digitization and technological development of our economies and to assist in our search for solutions to the issue of development and leading more people out of poverty," the minister said.

Last year, the World Bank recommended Nigeria to control inflation, improve stability of the FX market, sustain savings from the PMS subsidy reform, improve non-oil revenues and remove trade barriers.