Naira regains at black market, trades at N501/$ from N525/$

The central bank of Nigeria (CBN) new foreign exchange policy actions introduced has made visible impact on the exchange rate at the black market. The dollar tumbled from N525/$ to N501 Wednesday since the recent intervention.

Also, the buy rate for the greenback crashed on the parallel market yesterday to below N490 to the dollar, as foreign currency speculators who had held on to the dollar for several weeks rushed to sell off the currency in the wake of renewed confidence in the CBN’s ability to meet demand on the interbank market.
This is just as the chief executive of Economic Associates Limited, Dr. Ayo Teriba, urged the central bank not to relent in its efforts to rebuild foreign reserves to at least $36 billion that can cover nine months of imports, in order to close the gap between the interbank and parallel market rates.

Also, global ratings agency, Fitch Ratings yesterday said the new policy actions announced by the CBN, might ease some of the severe foreign currency liquidity pressure faced by banks in the country.
Fitch said that the most important aspect of the CBN’s announcement was the plan to normalise the FX interbank market.
It said in a statement that the intention of the CBN was to clear the backlog of overdue foreign currency obligations owed by banks to international creditors.
Read more