Naira drops further as pressure for Dollar mounts

Naira depreciated further against the United States dollar at the black market, exchanging at N478 as the momentum of increasing demand from traders and manufacturers for the greenback heaped pressure on the local currency.

It traded at N475 at the previous session, data from abokiFX, which collated data from street traders, showed and the decline meant naira lost 0.63% in value at the end of trade.

On Monday, it shed N5 on Monday when it closed at N470, meaning the naira has not gained any ground against the dollar so far this week.

The Nigerian currency is seeing a free fall on the parallel market as the recent release of $1 billion by the central bank to Bureaux de Change remains profoundly inadequate in meeting traders’ needs.

Meanwhile, naira slipped by 0.31% at the over-the-counter spot market also known as the Investors and Exporters forex window.

It closed at N386 a dollar on this side of the currency market relative to the N384.80 rate of exchange reported the session before, according to data from the FMDQ Group.

The Nigerian currency touched an intraday high of N386 against the dollar and hit a low of N392.81 before ending trade at N386.

Turnover dropped steeply by 44.13%, moving from $58.85 million to $32.88 million.