The Nigerian Naira plunged
against the United States dollar on Monday to its lowest in a week.
The local currency which
closed at N380 to a U.S. dollar on the parallel market on Friday, slid to N390
on Monday.
However, the Naira which has
been hovering between N380 and N410 to a dollar in the past two weeks has
failed to substantially close the gap between the official and black market
rates.
Prompting the Central Bank of
Nigeria to sell about $3 billion since the intervention began in February.
Accordingly, the CBN on Monday
offered a fresh $246.2 million to authorized dealers at the forex auction in
the inter bank wholesale window –‘the Small and Medium Enterprises and
invisible’ segments.
The breakdown shows the sum of
$150 million was auctioned at the wholesale window while the SMEs and
invisibles were appropriated $52 million and $44.2 million respectively.
This was confirmed by the CBN
spokesman, Mr. Isaac Okorafor, who stated that the forward sales would be
concluded in the days to come.
He further stated that the CBN
would continue its weekly sales to dealers in the Bureau de Change segment in
order to guarantee onward sale to end users.
“The SME operators no longer
have to patronize or source foreign through unofficial windows and no more
pressure on either the BDCs or any other unofficial source with the opening of
the special window,” he added.
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