The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), on Wednesday, continued its intervention in the inter-bank sector of the Foreign Exchange market with another $210m in the forex market to meet the customer requests, according to Isaac Okoroafor, its Acting Director in charge of Corporate Communications Department (CCD).
A breakdown of the figures showed that the CBN offered the sum of $100m to authorized dealers in the wholesale segment of the market, just as it allocated the sum of $55m each to the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) segment and the invisibles segment for payment of tuition fees, medical payments and Basic Travel Allowance (BTA), among others.
Confirming the figures, Okorafor said the continued intervention is in line with the commitment by Godwin Emefiele, the CBN Governor, to ensure liquidity in the market as well as reduce pressure on the naira. Okorafor expressed the CBN’s satisfaction with the current market situation occasioned by policies put in place to check forex speculatiors, round trippers and rent-seekers.
According to him, these policies had helped to stabilize the exchange rate in addition to the establishment of the Investors & Exporters window, which had increased fx supply with over $20 billion inflow since its inception.
According to him, the CBN will not relent in its effort to manage the country’s forex with a view to reducing its import bills and checking any haemorhage of its foreign reserves.
The CBN, in its last intervention on Tuesday, April 10, 2018 intervened to the tune of $210 million to cater for requests in the various segments of the forex market.
Meanwhile, the Naira remained stable in the FOREX market, exchanging at an average of N360/$1 in the BDC segment of the market on Wednesday, April 18, 2018.
It strengthened by 0.09% to NGN360.16 in the I&E FX window, while it remained flat at NGN363 in the parallel market.
Helped by the CBN intervention, total turnover in the I&E FX window inched 7.83% higher to USD361.38m, traded within the NGN330-NGN361.35/USD band.