Nigeria is aiming for remittance inflows of $1 billion per month and is thinking of issuing a diaspora bond in the US next year, the country’s central bank governor told Reuters on Thursday.

Since the present government started implementing extensive changes last year, Nigerians living overseas are eager to invest and have already more than doubled the amount of money they bring home, according to Central Bank Governor Olayemi Cardoso.

In an interview conducted on the fringes of IMF and World Bank meetings in Washington, D.C., Cardoso stated that a diaspora bond “could be on the horizon” in 2025 in the United States, which is home to the highest concentration of Nigerians living abroad.

“They want to invest … beyond just financially,” Cardoso said of Nigerians abroad.

“Our currency has now become extremely competitive and cheap. So they see the opportunity of taking positions in assets back home and in businesses back home.”

When President Bola Tinubu took over Africa’s oil-producing giant last year, he discovered a debilitating gasoline subsidy cost, a tightly controlled naira currency that was impeding investment, and a multi-billion dollar backlog of foreign exchange payments.

Cardoso was appointed by Tinubu in September 2023; Godwin Emefiele, his predecessor, is being tried for alleged corruption and criminal fraud.

With fuel prices five times higher and the naira worth only a fourth of what it was when Tinubu entered office, Cardoso said the bank’s attempts to win back investor confidence were succeeding. According to him, officials are aiming for $1 billion per month, and remittances reached $600 million in September from $250 million per month in the spring of this year.

“I would be surprised if we are not there by this time next year,” he said.

With reserves now worth over $40 billion, Cardoso stated that long-term attempts to diversify the economy away from oil could benefit from the weak naira.

“Now that our currency is relatively competitive … there should be the opportunity for those who have relied so much on importation to now beef up the productive activity that has so greatly eluded us over these years,” he said.

According to Cardoso, the bank will employ “vigilant” inflation monitoring and base interest rate choices on economic facts. He claimed that maintaining consistency in policy would attract longer-term foreign investment capital; investors were still evaluating the system at this point.

“Only time can show that you can stay the course,” he said.

Cardoso claimed that the government’s difficult decisions had received “an element of validation” from his talks with foreign Nigerians, investors, and rating agencies.

“It is necessary for people back home who have felt the brunt of a lot of these reforms to be able to … see that we are on the right course,” he said.