Naira appreciating faster than expected – ABCON

The Association of Bureau De Change Operators of Nigeria (ABCON) said that as of Tuesday, the Bureau De Change (BDC) operators were buying dollars at N980/$ at the open market and selling at N1,020/$.

This was confirmed by the President of ABCON, Aminu Gwadebe while featuring on a Channels Television programme, Business Incorporated, where he stated that the naira has appreciated faster than expected against the United States Dollar.

Gwadebe applauded the government and the Central Bank of Nigeria for its efforts so far, saying it’s the first time in the last 15 years that the exchange rate for the dollar in the parallel market is less than that at the official window.

He acknowledged that there is now calmness in the market as speculation which has been one of the major destabilization factors is no longer there.

‘’Well, it’s a long journey, it did not start today, there are many factors, a combination of those factors that helped in achieving this, even though it happened faster than expected. So, I want to congratulate the management of the Central Bank for the first time in history over the past 15 years we have never seen where the open market is lower than the CBN rate.

‘’So, kudos to the Central Bank, and congratulations Nigerians, there is calmness now, we have not been seeing speculation coming into the market which hitherto has been one of the albatrosses that is keeping the naira under pressure.

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‘’What you are seeing now is to show that what happened before has no economic fundamentals, it’s just a bubble and the bubble has burst.

‘’So, this happened with some stringent concerted policies, stress test policies that started with the unification of the market, it came with a mixture of feelings, a lot of disequilibrium, however, it has finally achieved its objectives of convergence. All is to converge the exchange rate so that we can have a single market, so congratulations to the presidency also for achieving this fiat convergence.’’

When asked if this naira appreciation is sustainable, the ABCON President said, “Honestly speaking I’m sure the government and the Central Bank have their target, I’m not a regulator, I’m not the Minister of Finance, so I will not give a target of what they are looking at but I’m sure they have a target and they are ready to achieve it. Yes, keeping it continuous is also a political will and I think the presidency has the political will to ensure that the target, in fact they already have a projected figure of what it is going to be, so people can work around that and I’m sure that is where the government is also working around.

‘’There is a lot of confidence, I heard you when you were talking about the fixed market, how investors are getting confidence, we have seen how Central Bank treasury bills have been oversubscribed and we have seen how they have also corrected the flows of diaspora remittances, now we are having a chunk of diaspora remittances coming in because of the so many policies of the Central bank that tried to calibrate how the inflows should be coming in even though there is a lot of gap that is not coming that is still externalized in the diaspora window.’’