Business Post Contributor
By Ashemiriogwa Emmanuel
As Nigeria celebrates its 61-year independence anniversary, the total amount in its external reserves has gained about $587.8 million in the last seven days.
Observing the data published on the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) platform, the amount left in the nation’s foreign savings accounts increased by 1.6 per cent to $36.4 billion on Tuesday, September 28 from $35.8 billion recorded on Tuesday of the previous week.
The current position of the nation’s external buffers is a speculation-come-true made by the apex bank after the last Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting held over two weeks ago.
The central bank Governor, Mr Godwin Emefiele, had said that, “The committee noted the significant increase in the external reserves which rose to $35.97 billion at end of August 2021 from $33.49 billion at end of July 2021, representing an increase of 7.4 per cent. It also welcomed the further increase to $36.03 billion on September.”
Mr Emefiele also mentioned that in order to sustain the recovery momentum of the country’s external reserves, there must be foreign exchange market stability, further reduction in inflationary pressure in the economy and continued interventions by the monetary and fiscal authorities.
According to data sourced by Business Post from the CBN, the nation’s FX reserves went up by $128.6 million from $35.8 billion recorded on Tuesday, September 21 to about $35.9 billion the following day.
The amount then expanded by $135.2 million to $36.1 billion on Thursday, September 23, and remained flat at $36.1 billion on Friday before jumping to $36.3 billion last Monday and then to $36.4 billion last Tuesday.
Meanwhile, the successful issuance of the recent $4 billion Eurobond by the federal government at the International Capital Market (ICM) is expected to give the nation’s foreign reserves a significant boost to over $40 billion before the end of October.
Hitting such a threshold would be the highest point of the amount in the external reserves since the last five years.
