CBN Strengthens Forex Market With $210m

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has released the sum of $210 million into different segments of the inter-bank Foreign Exchange Market.

Isaac Okorafor, the CBN’s Acting Director in charge of Corporate Communications, who confirmed the figures on Tuesday, said the latest intervention is meant to meet customers’ requests in various segments of the market.

A breakdown of the Bank’s latest round of intervention indicates that the CBN offered the sum of $100 million to dealers in the wholesale window, while those in the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) window received an allocation of $55 million.

The invisibles segment, comprising Business/Personal Travel Allowances, school tuition, medicals, was allocated the sum of $55 million.

The CBN Director further confirmed The WHISTLER’s exclusive report that the country’s external reserves had risen to $42 billion from the previous amount of $40.4 billion.

He said the apex Bank would continue to make the interventions, in spite of the new external reserve.

Okorafor was upbeat that the Bank’s forex management strategy was yielding the desired result; hence, he noted that the CBN would continue to sustain its activities in the market in order to maintain stability and liquidity.

Speaking on the goal of convergence between the rates at the inter-bank and Bureau de Change (BDC) segments, he said the CBN was working hard to achieve the objective and expressed belief that the rates in both markets would eventually merge in due course.

Okarafor said the CBN will continue to ensure the availability of Forex to low-end users, noting that naira as of Friday, February 27, 2018, exchanged against the dollar at N360/$1.