Christine Lagarde, the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), will be arriving in Nigeria today for a four-day working visit.
Lagarde aged 59 is billed to hold talks with President Muhammadu Buhari and the key sector officials including the Finance Minister, Kemi Adeosun, and the Central Bank Governor, Godwin Emefiele on strengthening the economy.
The four-day working visit between January 4 and 7 will be her second to Nigeria, after an earlier one in December 2011. Largarde, it was learnt will hold talks on ways of boosting the economy which experts said is showing signs of distress orchestrated by the falling oil prices.
Oil prices have been at a low of about $37 per barrel threatening the steady revenue generation in a heavily oil-dependent economy. The talks, pundits say may help local policymakers to find ways of tackling the present challenges of foreign exchange (forex) restrictions, debit cards ban abroad and the restriction placed on some import items.
The IMF mid December projected that crude oil prices may slump to all-time low of $20 per barrel in 2016, hence the need for the local economy to reposition itself.
