The Manufacturers Association of Nigeria’s (MAN) has criticised last week’s decision of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to hike interest rates, saying it portends danger to manufacturing. The Committee had increased the Monetary Policy Rate (MPR) by 150 base points to 15.5 per cent with an asymmetric corridor of +100/-700 basis points around the MPR; and Cash Reserve Requirement (CRR) by 750 base points to 32.5 percent; while retaining Liquidity Ratio at 30 per cent. MAN said the increase was aimed at moderating the high inflation and narrow the gap between the MPR of 14 per cent and inflation rate which stood at 20.52 per cent in August to improve the level real interest rate. MAN‘s Director-General (DG) Segun Ajayi-Kadir, said the implications of the MPC’s decision portends worrisome negative consequences for the manufacturing sector, some of which include increased cost of borrowing by manufacturers, further beyond the extant double-digit rate, which disincentivise new investments in the sector; increased factor costs which feed into high product prices, making the sector uncompetitive; high product prices, which makes patronage to plummet and lead to huge inventory of unsold manufactured products in the sector.