By Adedapo Adesanya
The Nigerian Naira strengthened against the US Dollar by 4.3 per cent or N33.35 in the Investors and Exporters (I&E) segment of the foreign exchange market on Friday, closing at N741.85/$1 compared with the previous day’s N775.20/$1.
The value of the Naira was bolstered as the Nigerian government took a fresh step to stabilise the FX market.
The Minister of Finance, Mr Wale Edun, said a solution to the foreign exchange crisis in the country was underway, following a meeting with World Bank officials on how to address liquidity in the market.
Speaking in Abuja at a business lunch hosted in his honour alongside three other ministers on Thursday, Mr Edun revealed that the federal government would be working to get cheap FX funding from the global lender.
In his words, “We were meeting with the World Bank and as we know, this is a time of very tight foreign exchange liquidity. So, it must be sought and found wherever. And one of those cheap and viable ways is foreign exchange funding, which virtually comes free. A lot of it has zero interest from the World Bank, a multilateral development institution set up to help developing countries such as ours.”
This assurance helped the local currency in the official market despite a shrink in the supply of forex to the space by 41.2 per cent or $38.86 million to $55.38 million from the $95.79 million achieved in the preceding session.
In the black market, the domestic currency gained N1 against the greenback on Friday to sell at N1,004/$1 compared with the preceding session’s N1,005/$1.
However, in the Peer-to-Peer (P2P) window, the local currency lost N1 against the American currency to settle at N1,012/$1, in contrast to Thursday’s exchange rate of N1,011/$1.
The Naira performed better in the spot market as it improved its value against the Pound Sterling yesteray by N11.56 to sell at N926.77/£1 versus the previous day’s N938.33/£1 and appreciated by N11.67 against the Euro to finish at N801.42/€1 against versus N813.09/€1.
The digital currency market was full of life on Friday, with Solana (SOL) gaining 3.4 per cent to trade at $23.79 supported by growth in the usage of decentralized applications (DApps) and increased nonfungible token (NFT) volumes on its network.
Bitcoin (BTC) neared $28,000 after it rose by 1.5 per cent to $27,907.82, Ethereum (ETH) grew by 1.3 per cent to $1,640.68, Litecoin (LTC) expanded by 1.5 per cent to $66.16, Binance Coin (BNB) went up by 1.1 per cent to $213.63, Dogecoin (DOGE) rose by 0.9 per cent to $0.0615, Cardano (ADA) increased by 0.2 per cent to $0.2663, and Ripple (XRP) jumped by 0.1 per cent to trade at $0.5223, while Binance USD (BUSD) and the US Dollar Tether (USDT) closed flat at $1.00 apiece.
Dipo Olowookere