The retail sector of the interbank forex market received a huge boost on Friday, as the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) intervened with a total sum of $388.66 million sold to authorized dealers in that sector of the market.
The new figures were the results of the bids submitted by dealers since Tuesday, May 2, 2017.
Confirming the numbers, the Acting Director, Corporate Communications Department at the CBN, Isaac Okorafor, disclosed that the sum of $87.885 was for spot sales, while $300.8 million was sold as forwards.
Okorafor further explained that the forwards were sold into three tenors of 30, 45 and 60 days respectively. According to him, the Bank sold $100.95 as 30-day forwards; $110.48 million as 45-day forwards and $99.37 as 60-day forwards.
While also confirming that the Bank continued with its intervention in the Bureau de Change (BDC) segment of the market to meet the needs of low-end users, the spokesman said the Bank remained resolute in ensuring that it supplies enough forex to genuine customers and in the process sustain liquidity in the market.
With this development, he expressed hope that the CBN will inch even much closer to its objective of convergence of the rates in the interbank and BDC segments.
It will be recalled that the CBN in the course of the week intervened in the wholesale and invisibles segments of the market with amounts valued at over $346 million to ease access to foreign exchange by different categories of customers.
Meanwhile, Okoroafor has also said the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), will resist calls from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) to float the naira.
He insisted that such a move will ‘kill’ Nigerians.
Read Also:
- Nigeria to Strengthen Defence Ties with Germany
- Police Cyber Crime Centre Arraign 109 Foreign Nationals on 6 Count Fraud Charges at Federal High Court; Case Adjourned to Nov 22, 2024
- Tinubu Hopes on you to Actualise Policy on National Stability, Food Security – CDS tells Defence Intelligence Officers
Okorafor said this at the World Bank/IMF meetings holding in Washington.
According to him, the call to liberalize the foreign exchange market by floating the naira was laughable.
Maintaining that the CBN was committed to ensuring access to forex by the drivers of the economy, small and medium enterprises (SMEs), Okorafor said: “Our economy has its own peculiarities, and we cannot kill our people in the name of floating the naira
“The call here in Washington is that we should float the naira, liberalize the market. Our market is extensively liberalized and the call to float the naira is a bit laughable in our case,” he said.
“Yesterday, when Madame Lagarde was discussing the economy of Egypt, she lamented herself, the devastating inflation that is in that country.
“Egypt has half of our population; Egypt receives about 12 billion in foreign earnings and several billions in tourism.
“We are 180 million people, our infrastructure is so poor and the productive capacity cannot be fast enough to rise to benefit from massive depreciation.
“If you float the naira today, and given the discoveries by security agencies, you’ll discover that our case will be terrible.
“If Egypt today has an inflation rate of almost 31 percent, remember Angola also has about 36 percent inflation, ours is at 17.26.
“If we float the naira and we allow speculators and those with corruption money and all the people who create the bubbles to launch into the market, you can yourself imagine the kind of situation we will find ourselves
“Yes, we would go all out to practice economic theory the way they say you should allow your currency to float, but of course, you should also know that no country floats its currency; just leaving it to the dictates of the market.”
END
