THE Central Bank of Nigeria has announced a new date to hold the 299th Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting.

The 2-day bimonthly meeting was earlier scheduled for February 17 and 18.

In a statement on Monday, February 10, the apex bank said the meeting will now be held on February 18 and 19.

“This is to inform you that the 299th meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) is scheduled to be held as indicated below: Day 1: Wednesday, February 19, 2025 Time: 10:00 am. Day 2: Thursday, February 20, 2025 Time: 8:00 am,” it said.

The venue: would be the MPC Meeting Room, 11th Floor, Wing C, CBN Headquarters, Abuja.

The official announcement came a day after The ICIR reported why the apex bank might shift the MPC meeting.

The organisation had observed a delay by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) in releasing a report on the rebasing of the Nigerian economy.

The rebasing is to give a new direction in calculating the monthly Consumer Price Index (CPI) used in measuring the country’s monthly inflation figure.

It is also to affect the measurement used in arriving at Nigeria’s quarterly gross domestic product (GDP) rate.

According to the statistics office, the rebasing is to capture changes in certain sectors of the economy and to reflect current consumption patterns while also reflecting the economic dynamics witnessed in the past few years.

It then set the end of January to unveil the report but had failed to deliver on its promise.

However, the delay by the NBS in releasing its report since the end of January has been anticipated to affect the earlier scheduled date for the MPC meeting.

It has also raised concerns about it affecting the MPC meeting as the inflation report is typically released every 15th day of every month.

Following the official rescheduling of the date, it then that the MPC meeting will commence three days after the January inflation rate is expected to be released.

The apex bank relies heavily on inflation trends to make key decisions.

With a new date confirmed, economic analysts are keenly watching to see if the committee will retain or increase the benchmark interest rate in response to prevailing economic conditions.

This is not the first time the CBN postponed its MPC meeting under the leadership of Olayemi Cardoso.

After he was newly appointed in September 2023, the CBN postponed a meeting of its MPC again as investors and analysts look forward to the move by Cardoso in tackling surging inflation.

The CBN held its first MPC meeting of 2024 on February 26 and 27, which was also the first under Cardoso’s leadership.