Business owners have identified high interest rates, insecurity, insufficient power supply, high taxes, financial problems and high bank charges as top business constraints for February 2025.
The report comes amid a drop in the inflation rate from 23.18 per cent in February relative to the January 2025 headline inflation rate of 24.48 per cent.
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in its newly released Business Expectations Survey Report for February 2025, listed high interest rates as recording the highest rate with 75 per cent of the respondents.
Insecurity followed with 73.9 per cent, insufficient power supply recorded 73.8 per cent, and high taxes with 73 per cent.
Respondents identified financial challenges as taking 68.5 per cent, with high bank charges recording 76.6 per cent.
The report identified the macroeconomy for the current month as driven by respondents from all regions except the Southeast.
Despite the challenges, businesses hope to employ more workers in March 2025.
An analysis of the sectors showed that the Construction sector had the highest prospect for employment at 23.6 per cent in March, while the mining and quarrying sector had the highest prospect for expansion in March 2025.
The respondents hoped to expand their businesses to the tune of 76.5 per cent, while they expect the naira to appreciate across all reviews.
They also anticipate that the borrowing rate will rise during March 2025.
According to NBS, the headline inflation rate showed a decrease of 1.30 per cent compared to the January 2025 headline inflation rate.
Food inflation, the NBS said the rate in February 2025 was 23.51 per cent on a year-on-year basis.
According to the Bureau, this was 14.41 per cent lower compared to the rate recorded in February 2024 (37.92 per cent).
It said that the significant decline in the food inflation figure is technically due to the change in the base year. However, on a month-on-month basis, NBS said the food inflation rate in February 2025 was 1.67 per cent.
