The Bilateral Currency Swap Agreement between the Central Bank of Nigeria and the People’s Bank of China has continued on a very slow pace as only CNY7.04bn, an equivalent of $995.6m worth of auction has been executed since 2018.
This was contained in the half year activity report released by the CBN on Thursday and seen by THE WHISTLER.
The CBN had in May 2018 signed the Bilateral Currency Swap Agreement with the People’s Bank of China to facilitate trade using the naira for the yuan.
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The deal was for an initial three-year tenure ending 2021, but was renewed in April 2021.
The deal was aimed at reducing pressure on the Nigerian foreign exchange reserves resulting from settlement of trade obligations.
But in the first half of 2022, CNY1.263bn ($178.58m) was sold in 13 auctions, slightly higher than the CNY1.217bn ($172m) sold in 13 auctions in the same period of 2021.
Since inception to end-June 2022 a total of CNY7.043bn was sold.
The CBN said, “The implementation of the three-year N720.00 billion/CNY15.00 billion Bilateral Currency Swap Agreement between the Bank and the People’s Bank of China (PBoC), which commenced in July 2018 was renewed in April 2021 for another three-year term.
“Thus, a total of CNY1,263.51 million was sold in 13 auctions during the review period, compared with CNY1,217.09 million in 13 auctions in the corresponding period of 2021.
“Consequently, the total sales from inception to end-June 2022 stood at CNY7,043.57 million.”