The Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele has disclosed that CBN is working to include sugar and wheat on the list of commodities that will be banned accessing foreign exchange (FX).

He made this disclosure in Awe, Nasarawa state during an inspection tour of the proposed $500 million Dangote sugar processing facility.

According to Emefiele: “We are looking at sugar and wheat. We started a programme on milk about two years ago. Eventually, these products will go into our FX restriction list.”

He declared the CBN “will provide not only the naira or some of the naira because Dangote is a big man and has equity he’s contributing to the project.

“Hopefully, within the next two years, we will provide that support. That is our interest here to reduce reliance on importation”.

CBN’s decision to include sugar and wheat on the FX restriction list, he said, is because “we spend $600m to $1 billion importing sugar into the country annually”.

Before adding the commodities to the FX restriction list, the CBN Governor said they “want to see to what extent we see the traction that is coming from those who are currently importing these items”.

He noted that “we must all work together to produce these goods in Nigeria rather than import them”.