By John Ikani
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) says it injected $7.6 billion into the economy through foreign exchange sales to authorised dealers, as part of efforts of geared towards stabilising the value of the Naira.
The apex bank said this in its monthly economic reports for May 2022.
According to the reports, the CBN intervened in the markets with $1.65bn, $1.39bn and $1.82bn in January, February and March, while the interventions were $1.56bn and $1.18bn in April and May respectively.
The CBN added that it pumped $1.82 billion in March, $1.56 billion in April and $1.18 billion in May 2022.
Despite interventions, the naira depreciated by 0.7 percent to N415 a dollar in the official market within the period.
What the apex bank is saying
The report read, “Total foreign exchange sales to authorised dealers by the bank were $1.18bn, a decrease of 24.4 per cent, below $1.56bn in April.
“A breakdown shows that foreign exchange sales at the Investors and Exporters and interbank/invisible windows decreased by 37.9 per cent and 0.7 per cent to $0.16bn apiece, below their respective levels in the preceding month.
“Similarly, SMIS and matured swap contracts fell by 7.0 per cent and 71.4 per cent to $0.64bn and $0.10bn, respectively, compared to the amounts in April. However, foreign exchange sales at the Small and Medium Enterprises window rose by 8.4 per cent to $0.12bn in the review period.”
The CBN maintained the official rate of the naira to the dollar at N427.76 at the I&E forex window on its website; while at the parallel market, the naira was bought and sold for N690 and N700.
Last year, the CBN stopped the sale of foreign exchange (FX) to Bureau De Change (BDCs) operators in the country and channelled weekly allocations of dollar sales to commercial banks to meet legitimate FX demands.
Godwin Emefiele, governor of the CBN, had said the apex bank would stop the sale of foreign exchange to banks by the end of the year.
“The era is coming to an end when, because your customers need $100 million in foreign exchange or $200 million, you now want to pack all the dollars and pass it to CBN to give you dollars,” he had said.
“It is coming to an end before or by the end of this year. We will tell them don’t come to the Central Bank for foreign exchange again and generate their export proceeds.”
