Despite CBN’s Aggressive Forex Policy, Reserves Drops By $80.25m In July

Nigeria’s foreign reserves depreciated by $80.25m in one month despite oil boom and the Central Bank’s aggressive policy to attract dollar into the economy.

Between July 1 and August 1, 2022, the reserves fell from $39.17bn to $$39.09bn, representing an $80.25m loss.

The Central Bank of Nigeria document analysed by THE WHISTLER showed that on July 28, the reserves was worth $39.15bn, or a loss of $18.66m in 28 days.

Between July 28, 2022 to August 1, the reserves have plunged by $142m to $39.09bn from $40.5bn.

The CBN has been under pressure over Nigeria’s foreign exchange supply deficit amid over $100 dollar per barrel oil price.

The apex bank Governor, Godwin Emefiele, was summoned by Nigeria Senators to explain foreign exchange shortfalls and the decline in the value of the naira.

“The CBN remained committed to resolving the foreign exchange issues confronting the nation and as such has been working to manage both the demand and supply side challenges,” Emefiele said on the fall.

Naira has lost its value at the parallel market trading around $710 per dollar, while the official rate has dropped to N417.19 from N416.9.

Due to Nigeria’s forex woes, billions belonging to foreign investors have been trapped in the Nigerian economy. Foreign airlines alone have $450m unrepatriated revenue with the CBN.

Recently, the CBN’s Emefiele said that the recently introduced RT200 Non-Oil Export Proceeds Repatriation Rebate Scheme (RT200), a policy which seeks to attract $200bn remittances into the Nigerian economy has generated over $2.9bn as at June.

“We are delighted that the race to $200bn is yielding good result under the RT200 programme because in the data that we have so far, we found out that we have received inflow as at June this year of over $2.9bn,” Emefiele had said during the July, 2022 Monetary Policy Meeting.