Forex: CBN Boosts Retail SMIS With $263m, CNY 39m

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has lifted the Retail Secondary Market Intervention Sales (SMIS) segment of the country’s foreign exchange market with the sum of $263 million on Friday.

The latest CBN Forex intervention followed its earlier provision of the sum CNY 39 million consummated through a combination of spot and short-tenored forwards, arising from bids received from authorized dealers.

This was revealed in a statement on Friday by the apex bank’s Director of Corporate Communications, Mr Isaac Okorafor.

Okorafor said, ‘‘the US dollar-denominated interventions were for requests in the agricultural and raw materials sectors while the Yuan sale was for payment of Renminbi-denominated Letters of Credit for agriculture as well as raw materials.’’

He stated that the move was in furtherance of the CBN Governor’s avowed commitment to ensuring foreign exchange liquidity in the system as well as boosting trade and production.

With the rates closing at N359/$1 on Friday, January 11, 2019, Mr. Okorafor, expressed confidence that the CBN, in the weeks ahead, will sustain its intervention through the sale of foreign exchange to all segments of the market to meet all legitimate foreign exchange demand in the market while also striving to achieve exchange rate stability in the market.

Okorafor also disclosed that the Governor, Godwin Emefiele, will further unfold the Bank’s plans for the year during the first Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting for the year scheduled for January 21 to 22, 2019.