The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has rescheduled the 299th Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting, which was originally set for February 17 and 18, 2025. According to a statement issued on Monday, the meeting will now take place on February 19 and 20, 2025.
The statement read, “The Central Bank of Nigeria has announced that the 299th meeting of its Monetary Policy Committee earlier scheduled for February 17 and 18, 2025, will now be held on Wednesday, February 19 and Thursday, February 20, 2025.”
This change puts an end to the uncertainty surrounding the meeting dates, which arose from delays in the release of the rebased Consumer Price Index (CPI) by the National Bureau of Statistics.
With the new dates now confirmed, the statement highlighted that economic analysts are closely monitoring whether the committee will maintain or raise the Monetary Policy Rate in response to the current economic situation.
The first MPC meeting for 2025, originally planned for January 27-28, was pushed to February to allow time for the release of the rebased inflation and GDP data.
This isn’t the first time the CBN has postponed an MPC meeting under the leadership of Olayemi Cardoso. After taking office in September 2023, the CBN delayed another MPC meeting as investors and analysts awaited Cardoso’s approach to managing inflation. The first MPC meeting of 2024, held on February 26 and 27, was also the first under Cardoso’s leadership.
Monetary policy decisions are strongly influenced by inflation trends. However, with the rebased CPI still pending, which was expected at the end of January, there are concerns about the timing of critical economic data ahead of the MPC meeting. The NBS typically releases its CPI report on the 15th of each month. If this schedule is upheld, the inflation report may be released just three days before the newly scheduled MPC meeting.
