Business
FG To Establish Commodity Corporations
The Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment says the establishment of commodity corporations in the country will promote greater private sector participation and ownership.
The Permanent Secretary in the ministry, Mr Abdulkadir Musa, said this in Abuja, at a consultative meeting of stakeholders on the proposed establishment of commodity corporations recently.
Musa said the forum was timely as government was concerned about issues bordering on agric-commodity development as a way of diversifying the nation’s economy.
“It is important to state that the global market conditions and unsustainable fiscal deficits show that the government can no longer sustain a high level of public expenditures.
“The liberalisation option of commodity trade should be sustained and encouraged in order to promote greater private sector participation and ownership,’’ he said.
Musa said the ministry was saddled with the mandate of developing agricultural commodities from processing, packaging, quality certification to standardisation, storage and marketing.
He recalled that commodity boards were established in 1977 as a key trade policy on export of agricultural commodities.
The objectives of the boards, he said, were to purchase agric-commodity from farmers and later sell to large buyers while providing incentives to farmers to enable them increase their acreage.
Musa said the boards also ensured that farmers adopted new technologies in production to increase yield.
“It was, however, clear that the operation of those boards involved very high administrative costs, unbearable taxation on farmers, gross under-pricing of agric commodities, political interference and non-sustainable infrastructure,’’ he said.
The permanent secretary said with the introduction of the Structural Adjustment Programme in 1986, government policy direction changed in favour of economic liberalisation that included the trading of commodities.
As a result of this, he said the liberalisation witnessed lack of requisite experiences which resulted in the loss of overseas buyers confidence in Nigerian agricultural produce for not meeting the minimum international requirement.
Musa added that in an effort to address the challenges, the dissolution of the marketing boards required the establishment of a market structure to fill the unintended vacuum created.
He further said that the Federal Government established the Export Commodities Coordinating Committee in 1989 as an inter-ministerial body with members drawn from different ministries.
He said the committee had brought sanity into the agric-commodity business with the introduction of standards in conjunction with key stakeholders.
“I am pleased to inform the gathering that the financial obligation of Nigeria to the International Commodity Organisation to which Nigeria is affiliated has been settled to date.
Cornerstone of Financial Services
A survey of more than 1 000 global finance leaders undertaken by digital payment network Ripple shows that 72% of respondents believe they need to offer a digital asset solution to remain competitive.
According to Ripple, leaders from the banking, fintech, corporate and asset management sector have made it clear that the “digital asset revolution is happening now”.
“Digital assets are quickly becoming a cornerstone of financial services, underpinned by progressive regulation, growing interest from Tier-1 banks, a steady consumer shift from banks to fintech providers, and booming stablecoin adoption,” Ripple says.
The survey was conducted in early 2026 and the findings released in March.
Stablecoin Boon or Bane?
Ripple has experienced significant success in the stablecoin sector since launching its Ripple USD (RLUSD) stablecoin in 2024.
With a market cap of $1.56 billion, it is considered a major regulated player in the market.
No doubt the platform was pleased to learn through its own survey that financial leaders were most bullish about stablecoins.
Roughly three-quarters of respondents believed they could boost cash-flow efficiency and unlock trapped working capital.
Ripple noted that finance leaders were thinking about stablecoins as more than “just a new way to execute payments”; instead, they viewed them as effective tools for treasury management.
In March 2026, Ripple began testing a new trade finance model built around RLUSD in a bid to increase the speed of cross-border payments.
The pilot initiative, developed alongside supply chain finance company Unloq [https://unloq.com], is running on the XRP Ledger inside a testing framework developed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
The Asian city-state is one of the platform’s biggest growth markets.
The idea behind the project is to see whether stablecoin-based settlement can streamline trade finance, too often hampered by reliance on intermediaries and slow reconciliation.
The only potential drawback is that if the initiative takes off, the Ripple to USD price could be negatively affected.
Ripple has always championed its native XRP token as a bridge asset, the “middleman” in the process of a financial institution turning dollars in the US into pounds in the UK, for example.
Ripple converts dollars into XRP and then back into pounds.
If RLUSD can do exactly the same thing, questions will be asked about XRP’s relevance.
That is a bridge Ripple will have to cross if it gets to that point.
Tokenisation Partners
Another interesting finding from Ripple’s survey is that most banks and asset managers are seeking tokenisation partners to help execute their strategies.
Some 89% of respondents said digital asset storage and custody were top priority. “Token servicing/lifecycle management also ranks highly for banks at 82%, while asset managers place greater emphasis on primary distribution at 80%,” Ripple found.
The survey also revealed that just more than half of fintechs and financial institutions want an infrastructure provider that can offer a “one-stop-shop solution”. This rose to 71% among corporate financial leaders.
Ripple attributes this to institutions and firms wanting uncomplicated, cohesive systems.
Infrastructure Rules
In its final analysis, Ripple says companies across the board are looking for partners and solutions that are “secure, compliant, battle-tested and that enable growth and execution”.
“The message is clear: infrastructure decisions made today will shape competitive positioning tomorrow.”
No surprise that this is precisely where Ripple is placing much of its focus.