Nigeria wants to be at par with Ghana

The Nigerian Federal Government is targeting BB+ rating in 2007 from International rating agencies in order to improve its credit worthiness in the international economy.

It should be recalled that Fitch, and Standard & Poors, two renowned global rating agencies gave Nigeria a BB- rating in 2006 which put it in the same category with counties like India, Turkey and Brazil.

Despite the BB- rating, the Federal Government is not satisfied, according to a Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) source, because Ghana's economy was rated above Nigeria.

The source, who spoke under conditions anonymity stressed that the hope of the federal government is that the Fitch officials that visited the county late last year will put Nigeria at least in the same level with Ghana so that the nation would begin to achieve its aims of being the financial hub of Africa.