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Nigeria aims to present reform plan in February

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Nigeria wants to borrow at least $1 billion from the World Bank to help haul it out of recession and plans to present the required economic reform proposals to the lender this month, officials and diplomats told Reuters.

The oil producer, which has been hit hard by a sharp fall in crude prices since 2014, has been in talks with the Washington-based lender for a year to secure a loan to help plug a yawning budget deficit and fund badly needed infrastructure projects.

But the government has not specified how much money it was looking to borrow from the World Bank, saying only that it aimed to raise $5 billion abroad.

It was previously also unclear when Nigeria planned to present its proposed reforms to the lender -which will not consider a loan before it reviews the plans to make the economy more resilient and attractive to investment.

The government now plans to present its economic reform proposals by the end of February, according to government officials and Western diplomats who declined to be named as they are not authorised to speak publicly.

One senior government official said Nigeria would seek a loan of $1 billion from the World Bank, while a second senior official said it could seek as much as $2 billion.

The Nigerian finance ministry declined to comment on the size of the loan being sought or the timing of the submission of the reform proposals.

The World Bank also declined to comment on those matters. A spokeswoman said Nigeria’s economic proposals would be the “basis of which the World Bank will determine with the government the most appropriate lending instrument to support the implementation of the reform plan”.

It was unclear what the government’s economic reform programme would contain.

– By SABC

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