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The Central Bank of Nigeria, on Tuesday, retained its benchmark interest rate at 14 per cent in a bid to stimulate economic growth and rein in the country’s spiralling inflation rate.

The move by the apex bank comes a day after the National Bureau of Statistics reported that Nigeria’s recession worsened in the third quarter of 2016 as GDP contracted by 2.24 per cent compared with a contraction of 2.06 per cent in Q2 2016.

Godwin Emefiele, Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, said members of the bank’s Monetary Policy Committee voted unanimously to also retain the Cash Reserve Ratio at 22.5 per cent and Liquidity Ratio at 30 per cent.

Last week, the NBS reported that Nigeria’s inflation accelerated to 18.3 per cent in October from 17.9 per cent recorded in September driven by food and non-food inflation. Nigeria’s inflation rate has remained outside the upper limit of the CBN’s target rate of 9 per cent since June last year.