Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Deputy Governor, Financial System Stability, Dr. Joseph Nnanna on Thursday has said that naira devaluation won’t affect the price of shares.
While speaking with journalists in Abuja shortly after interacting with students of the Government Secondary School, Garki, to mark the 2015 School Mentoring Programme, which is part of activities for Global Money Week, Nnanna said “Our stocks are denominated in naira, they are priced in naira, our stock market can only be affected by the profitability of the companies which are quoted in the stock exchange.
“But so far, we don’t see any evidence that some of the companies quoted there, their profit margin or bottom line is declining. So that’s why I am saying that the stability of the Naira or otherwise won’t affect the price of the shares.”
When asked if the fluctuation in the exchange rate won’t affect the importation of raw materials, he said: “The point here is that we talk about costs, we don’t talk about returns. The companies that import things from abroad cannot continue to be in business if their returns on investment is not high enough.
“So breweries are local brands, the star beer you drink are produced with almost ninety-five per cent local materials, cement by Dangote has ninety-five percent local raw materials and many others. This economy has been diversified from what you see from the GDP. We have N510 billion GDP and services, manufacturing, agriculture now account for the greatest share.”