The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)’s Business Expectation Survey for January 2025 has shown that at least 75 per cent of businesses struggled with high interest rates as their primary operational constraint in the review period.
The report, which assesses the economic landscape for businesses across various sectors, highlights key obstacles hampering growth and productivity in Nigeria.
The CBN said the survey identified six major factors that negatively impacted businesses in January 2025, namely high interest rates; insecurity; insufficient power supply; high taxes; financial problems; high bank charges.
The CBN Business Expectations Survey (BES) is a monthly survey of leading firms drawn from Business Establishment updated frames of Central Bank of Nigeria and the National Bureau of Statistics.
The January 2025 Business Expectations Survey (BES) was conducted from January 13 to 17, 2025 with a sample size of 1,900 business enterprises across Nigeria. The survey achieved a response rate of 99.7 per cent covering three key sectors: Industry, Services, and Agriculture.
The CBN further stated that for the review period, the economy’s overall capacity utilisation was at 56.8 per cent.
The report noted that the mining and quarrying sector recorded the highest capacity utilisation for January 2025, reaching 60.3 per cent, indicating that businesses in this sector were able to leverage available resources and opportunities better than others amid economic uncertainties.
According to the report, respondent firms were optimistic that the volume of business activity in February, April and July 2025 would be favourable.
