The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) is to release no fewer than 179 reports on different sectors of the economy this year

According to the 2018 tentative data release calendar posted on the bureau’s Website, the NBS is expected to release 40 data in the first quarter.

According to the calendar analysed by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), the bureau will release data on consumer price index and inflation, price watch on diesel, petrol and kerosene.

Other items on the calendar are telecommunications data, monthly Federal Account Allocation Committee disbursements, gross domestic products and foreign trade merchandise.

The Debt Management Office has announced that the debut Sovereign Green Bond offered to the general public in December, 2017 was very well received by a wide range of investors. At the close of the offer, the total subscription received was N10.791bn compared to the N10.69bn offered.

Some Commercial banks in Nigeria have barred their customers from using debit and credit cards to withdraw dollars, euros, pounds and other foreign currencies outside the country.

The development is likely to affect business and leisure travellers as well as students studying abroad who often rely on withdrawing hard currencies with their Nigerian payment cards from Automatic Teller Machines abroad to meet certain needs.

The policy is in reaction to prevailing naira volatility which has gotten the finger of most Nigerian banks fingers burnt.

The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr Ibe Kachikwu, has said it is shameful that Nigeria cannot produce sufficient fuel for its citizens after over 35 years.

Kachikwu stated this on Thursday in Abuja during a one-day public hearing of the National Assembly Joint Committees on Petroleum (Downstream), investigating the causes of recent fuel scarcity recorded across the country in December 2017.

The minister, who decried the poor state of the refineries over the years, condemned their inability to produce sufficient fuel for the country.

Dr. Ibe kachikwu

The federal government is set to prosecute any marketer that sells petrol above the recommended N145per litre.

Minister of state for petroleum resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, stated this yesterday while Speaking during a meeting of the committee set up by government to resolve grey areas in the supply of petrol.

Nigeria has agreed a $550-million deal to procure two Chinese satellites and hopes to sign the contract before the end of the month, the communication minister, Adebayo Shittu said on Wednesday.

International oil majors such as ExxonMobil, Shell, Total and others will cut investment on exploration in 2018.

In a report by consultancy Wood Mackenzie (WoodMac), this year, the IOCs are not again bothered by pressure to replace reserves, making it the fifth year of consistently cutting down on exploration investments.

Spending will collectively drop by around 4 percent this year. This represents a slag in about a tenth of investment in oil and gas production, it said.

“This could be the new normal, with the days of one dollar in six or seven going to exploration forever in the past,” WoodMac said in the report.

Oil marketers, have jettisoned their clamour for an increase in the price of Premium Motor Spirit (petrol) and are now appealing to the Federal Government to grant them tax holidays and other incentives that would help cut their costs and also ensure that they resume fuel importation.

This was part of agreements reached at the meeting of the ad-hoc committee set up by the Presidency to engage the Federal Government on ways to get oil marketers to restart importation of the commodity and resolve the country’s fuel supply challenges.

The Nigerian Port Authority (NPA) has disclosed that about forty two ships laden with Petroleum products, food items and other goods will arrive Apapa and Tin Can ports between today and January 30.  The agency in its publication "Shipping Position" made available to Vigil360 said that the ships contained buck wheat, frozen fish, bulk gas, bulk fertilizer, aviation fuel, bulk sugar, diesel, petrol and containers laden with goods.

The Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to France, Dr Modupe Irele, announced that France invested about ₦150 billion (€350 million) in Nigeria in 2017. Irele said in Lagos that the amount was disbursed as soft loans to the Federal and State Governments, as well as the private sector. “It is estimated that in 2017 alone, France invested around €350 million (about ₦150 billion) in Nigeria, mostly through soft loans to both the Federal and State governments and the private sector.