There were indications at the weekend that the Central Bank of Nigeria is planning to pump in more foreign exchange into the interbank market to meet the demands of wholesale and retail customers, as well as strengthen the value of the naira against other international currencies.
The planned move by the CBN, sources say, will further firm up the naira against other currencies, as the exchange rates of the greenback and the United Kingdom pound sterling continue to move southwards.
Investigations revealed that the US dollar, euro and the pound, exchanged at the parallel market over the weekend at the rates of N375, N405 and N475 respectively, with the anticipation that the figures will further nosedive this week.
Speaking at the weekend, the acting Director, Corporate Communications Department, CBN, Isaac Okoroafor, confirmed the plan to inject more foreign exchange into the forex market.
Okoroafor said that the move underscored the apex bank’s commitment to sustain the tempo of liquidity in the interbank market for the sake of different categories of genuine end-users.
Urging authentic prospective customers to freely approach their respective banks with relevant requirements to apply for the purchase of foreign exchange, he assured that the banks had adequate supplies to meet genuine needs.
Okoroafor also warned forex dealers against engaging in acts capable of disrupting the current smooth operations of the forex market, stressing that the CBN would penalise any organisation found guilty of bending the rules.
It would be recalled that during the last intervention of the CBN in the interbank forex market, authorised dealers were only able to pick up about $82 million, out of the $100 million offered by the CBN.
Over $1 billion has so far been offered and released by the CBN in the past one month of its intervention.
However, over the past five weeks, the CBN, through its regular interventions at the foreign exchange market, sold over $2 billion to meet wholesale and invisible demand, causing the value of the naira to soar at the parallel market.
Presently, the value of the naira at the black market and the Bureau de Change rate have converged and is nearing the rate at which banks sell to their customers.
The value of the naira as at Friday afternoon had appreciated to N380 to the dollar, while the BDC and bank-selling rates stand at N375 and N385 to the dollar respectively.
In February, the CBN commenced intense flooding of the forex market with dollars, after the naira dropped in value to around N550 to the greenback.
In all, it had sold $410 million for invisibles such as school fees, medical fees, Basic Travel Allowance and Personal Travel Allowance, between February 21 and March 24.
