Forex: Again CBN Drops Another $81.2m for BTA, PTA, Others

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has released the sum of $81.2 million to the invisibles and Small and Me­dium Enterprises (SMEs) seg­ments to ease their access to foreign exchanges.
This followed last Friday’s injection of $389 million into the retail segment of the forex market,
A breakdown of the in­terventions indicates that the apex bank provided the sum of $44 million to meet cus­tomers’ requests for invisibles such as Basic Travel Allowanc­es (BTA), Personal Travel Al­lowances (PTA), medical bills and tuition fees, among oth­ers.

CBN Acting Director for Corporate Communications, Mr. Isaac Okorafor, who con­firmed the intervention, said that the SMEs’ segment re­ceived $37.2 million.
According to him, “the bank remains committed to ensuring that there is enough swupply of forex to genuine customers to achieve the goal of rates convergence.”
While expressing satisfac­tion with the current stabili­ty in the forex market, Okora­for reiterated his confidence in the ability of the CBN to sus­tain its interventions in the market.
Last Friday, the CBN sold the sum of $389 million to au­thorised dealers in the retail sector of the market as spot and forwards. Of the sum, $87.885 was for spot sales, while $300.8 million was sold as forwards in three tenors of 30, 45 and 60 days, respec­tively.