By Tony Obiechina, ABUJA The Central Bank of Nigeria CBN on Tuesday released a total of $210m to Authorized dealers in the wholesale segment of the inter-bank foreign exchange market to meet the requests of their customers.
The CBN also allocated the sum of $55million each to the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and the invisibles segments, comprising requests for tuition fees, medical payments and Basic Travel Allowance (BTA), among others.
The Apex Bank’s Director of Corporate Communications, Mr Isaac Okorafor disclosed who this stressed that the CBN would continue to intervene in the country’s interbank foreign exchange market.
According to him, the Bank’s management remained committed to ensuring stability in the market through liquidity.
It will be recalled that the Bank had made interventions totaling over $547million within the last one month in the Wholesale and Retail Secondary Market Sales (SMIS).
Meanwhile, the total foreign exchange (forex) interventions by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) stood at $963 million in August, a report by Financial Derivatives, a financial market research firm, has shown.
According to the report, the forex interventions have helped to stabilise the naira against global currencies, especillay, the dollar.
At the parallel market, the naira started the period at N360/$, and inched up marginally, closing at N361/$ on August 28th. This can be attributed partly to the CBN’s intervention of approximately $963mn in the period.
The naira also appreciated against the pound and euro to close at N464/£ and N412/Euro on August 28th from N474/£ and N415/Euro on August 13th. At the interbank foreign exchange market, the naira started the period at N306.05/$, and depreciated marginally by 0.033 per cent to close at N306.15/$ on August 28th.
The naira depreciated by 0.050 per cent to close at N362.38/$ at the IEFX window from N362.20/$ on August 13th. Total forex traded at the IEFX window was $2.93 billion, compared to $1.73 billion in the corresponding period in July.
The level of Nigeria’s gross external reserves decreased by 1.24 per cent (down $570 million) to $45.99 billion as at August 27th from $46.56 billion on August 13th. This was partly due to the increase in forex intervention – $963 million in August compared to $909 million in the corresponding period in July.
The import cover also decreased to 11.26 months from 11.40 months on August 13. Short term interest rates (OBB and ON) declined by 183 basis points and 159 bps respectively to close at 9.92 per cent and 10.83 per cent per annum.
Total OMO sales during the period was N251.44 billion compared to maturities of N878.36 billion resulting in a net inflow of N626.92 billion.
