FOREX: CBN Opens Week With $195m Boost

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on Monday, of­fered $100 million in wholesale auction at the inter-bank Foreign Exchange market and intervened in the Small and Medium Enterpris­es (SMEs) and invisible segments, with the sum of $50 million and $45 million, respectively.

The CBN Acting Di­rector, Corporate Communications, Mr. Isaac Okorafor who confirmed the figures, reiterated that the Banks intervention was in line with its commitment to sustain liquidity in the market to meet genuine requests as well as deepen flexibility in the foreign exchange mar­ket.
Monday’s sale follows the major intervention, last Friday, to the tune of $462,336,426.74, comprising $267,336,426.74 for the Retail Secondary Mar­ket Intervention Sales (SMIS), $100,000,000 for wholesale interven­tions, $50,000,000 for the SMEs forex window and $45,000,000 for in­visibles.
Okorafor had said last week that the CBN leadership was quite impressed by the posi­tive impact its current foreign exchange man­agement was having on the manufacturing sector, agriculture and economic activities in general across the country.
He pointed out that the CBN would contin­ue working on achiev­ing the objective of convergence between the exchange rates at the Nigeria Auton­omous Foreign Ex­change (NAFEX) and the Bureau-de-Change segments of the mar­ket, even as he assured proper surveillance of the forex market to guarantee transparen­cy in the sale of foreign exchange.
The spokesman also urged those who gen­uinely required for­eign exchange for their transactions to approach their banks, noting that the banks had enough forex to meet the demands for foreign exchange with­in the time frame stipu­lated by the CBN.
Meanwhile, the nai­ra hovered at between N360 and N362/$1 in the BDC segment of the market on Monday, July 31, 2017.