Dipo Olowookere
By Dipo Olowookere
For the first time in 2019, the external reserves of Africa’s largest economy, Nigeria, reached $44 billion on Monday, March 25, 2019.
Data obtained by Business Post from the website of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) showed that the amount grew to the present level from $43.7 billion on Friday, March 22, 2019, representing 0.69 percent increase.
Business Post reports further that the last time the foreign reserves stayed in the $44 billion region was on October 2, 2018.
From October 3, 2018, the reserves started declining gradually to even $41 billion at some point in the year.
The CBN Governor, Mr Godwin Emefiele, who leaves office in June 2019, has managed the nation’s reserves effectively.
He has also regularly used part of the reserves to keep the local currency, the Naira, relatively stable at the foreign exchange market.
Every week, the apex bank intervenes in the forex market with the sale of $210 million to traders at the market.
This has kept the Naira relatively stable at N360-N363 per Dollar at the currency market since early 2016 when the intervention started.
The main source of forex for Nigeria is the sale of crude oil, though the present administration made efforts to diversify the economy when oil prices crashed in 2016.
