By Modupe Gbadeyanka
The foreign exchange reserves of Nigeria now stand at $25 billion, data from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has revealed.
This is the first time in five months this is happening after the reserves dropped to an 11-year-low of $24.76 billion in earlier 2016.
The CBN disclosed that as at Friday, December 16, 2016, the actual amount in the reserves was $25.043 billion.
The country’s apex bank said the total foreign exchange inflows increased by 89.14 percent from $1.1 million recorded in July to $2.1 million in August 2016.
“This increase was due mainly to receipts of foreign flows within the month. Total outflows, however, decreased by 4.57 percent from $2.7 million to $2.6 million during the same period.
“In direct efforts to deepen the foreign exchange market and stabilize the financial markets generally, a number of policy instruments were deployed since the last MPC meeting, including an increase in the benchmark interest rate.
“Complementary administrative measures were also taken towards achieving this goal, among which was the directive to IMTOs to sell forex directly to Bureau de Change Operators, in order to improve liquidity in that segment of the foreign exchange market.”
Business Post observes that since the CBN introduced the new foreign exchange regime, the inflow of foreign exchange into the Nigerian economy had been on the rise.
Adedapo Adesanya