Oluchi Chibuzor
Afrinvest Limited has forecasted that Nigeria’s inflation is likely to touch 24.0 per cent before decelerating in Q4 2023 on the back of the base effect and weakened demand pressure.
In view of this, the firm has advised that the nation’s monetary policy should tread cautiously by maintaining the status quo.
Speaking at the firm’s half-year investment parley in Lagos, the Group Managing Director, Afrinvest, Ike Chioke, called on investors to position themselves for the opportunities in the economy, which had been magnified by ongoing reforms.
Speaking on the theme, “The Turning Point: Positioning for Optimal Return,” Chioke said the factors seen in both domestic and global economies showed that the country’s economy was at a turning point for greatness.
He said, “There is still one more subsidy element that the government needs to tackle and that is electricity subsidy. We see that will likely push inflation from 23 per cent up to 24 per cent towards the end of the third quarter of the year before we can then see inflation being reined in. But most of this would depend on the policy direction of the new government.”
Speaking on the outlook for the rest of the year, Chioke said, “In the fixed-income market, you see a lot of volatility but volatility is good if you are an active trader. In the equity market, we have seen a significant correction in the market. It is up by over 20 per cent from when President Tinubu came in but you have to be selective because there have been windows of profit-taking that put pressure on the market.”
“We’ve seen global inflation rates are dropping alarmingly over the last six, seven months. We’ve seen that the rate tightening by global central banks have kind of come to a point where they are pulling back. They have achieved the objective of reining in inflation. For Nigeria, the new government and ongoing forex reforms also have implications,” he said.
