Naira records biggest appreciation against dollar

By Odunewu Segun

Following the continued flooding of the FX market with dollar by the Central Bank of Nigeria in the last three weeks, the naira yesterday, Thursday 16 recorded its biggest appreciation against the dollar at the parallel market.

National Daily gathered that the Naira gained N13 to close at N445 per dollar. The sharp appreciation of the naira was due to decline in demand prompted by the sustained injection of dollar by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) into the foreign exchange market.

The appreciation implies that the naira has gained N15 against the dollar this week in the parallel market. The steady appreciation is driven by the sustained intervention of the CBN via regular dollar sales to banks to meet demands for visible and invisibles like Personal Travel Allowance (PTA) and Business Travel Allowance (BTA).

According to National Daily investigations, there is no more demand at the moment, “We have collected dollars from the CBN, but people are not coming to buy like before,” an operator explained.

Meanwhile the CBN yesterday said that it has offered and received bids for $100 million from authorized dealers in the interbank market to meet the requests of genuine customers.

Acting Director, Corporate Communications Department, CBN, Isaac Okorafor, disclosed this yesterday, adding that the sales will be settled on today. He, however, disclosed that no intervention was made by the CBN to meet requests for invisibles on Thursday.

Okorafor reiterated that the CBN will continue to make necessary interventions in the interbank market to meet all legitimate transaction-based foreign exchange demands by customers. It will be recalled that the Bank in its last auction sale offered $150 million to the interbank market with the highest bid rate at N335 per dollar while the marginal rate was N320 per dollar.

Since Monday February 20th 2017, when it announced new measures to boost dollar supply and forestall the declining fortunes of the naira in the parallel market, the CBN has injected $2.25 billion by intervening in the forex market eight times.