IMF says Nigeria repays $3.4 billion COVID-19 funding

LAGOS (Reuters) -Nigeria has repaid $3.4 billion in emergency funding it received from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to help the country cope with the impact of the coronavirus pandemic five years ago, the global lender said on Thursday.

In April 2020, the IMF provided the financing to help Africa's largest oil exporter cope with a collapse in crude prices, which hit its finances and tipped the economy into recession.

IMF resident representative to Nigeria Christian Ebeke said in a statement that, as of April 30, the country had "fully repaid the financial support" it received under the Fund's Rapid Financing Instrument, a facility that provides urgent balance of payments funding to member nations.

"Nigeria is expected to honour some additional payments in the form of Special Drawing Rights charges of about US$30 million annually," Ebeke added.

The most recent data from the Debt Management Office shows that Nigeria last year spent $4.66 billion to service its foreign debt, of which $1.63 billion was to the IMF.

(Reporting by MacDonald Dzirutwe; Editing by Alex Richardson)

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