Offers $195m Forex Intervention
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), on Monday, once again assured that arising from its several months of sustained intervention in the inter-bank foreign exchange market, the nation’s banks have enough liquidity to meet genuine customer demands as they arise, within the time frame stipulated.
This is just as the apex bank pumped a further $195m in line with this commitment as part of enhancing the value of the Naira against other global currencies.
A breakdown of the amount showed that $100m was offered to meet wholesale auction at the inter-bank Foreign Exchange market, while interventions in the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and invisible segments gulped $50m and $45m, respectively.
Confirming the figures, the CBN Acting Director of Corporate Communications, Isaac Okorafor reiterated that the apex bank’s intervention was in line with its commitment to sustain liquidity in the market to meet genuine requests as well as deepen flexibility in the foreign exchange market.
Monday’s sale follows the major intervention, last Friday, to the tune of $462,336,426.74, comprising $267,336,426.74 for the Retail Secondary Market Intervention Sales (SMIS), $100m for wholesale interventions, $50m for the SMEs forex window and $45m for invisibles.
Okorafor had said last week that the CBN management was quite impressed by the positive impact its current foreign exchange management was having on the manufacturing sector, agriculture and economic activities in general across the country.
He said the CBN would continue working on achieving the objective of convergence between the exchange rates at the Nigeria Autonomous Foreign Exchange (NAFEX) and the Bureau-de-Change segments of the market, even as he assured proper surveillance of the forex market to guarantee transparency in the sale of foreign exchange.
Meanwhile, the naira hovered at between N360 and N362/$1 in the BDC segment of the market on Monday, July 31, 2017.