By Adedapo Adesanya
The local currency depreciated against the Dollar at the Investors and Exchange (I&E) segment for the second consecutive day this week on Thursday as a Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) monthly report showed that it has injected over $25 billion to stabilize the currency between January and August 2019.
The value of the domestic currency went down by 27 Kobo or 0.07 percent yesterday to close at N362.79/$1 compared with the N362.52/$1 it was sold at the market window the previous session.
The daily market turnover increased on Thursday as investors exchanged a total of $273.93 million compared to $208.81 million recorded at the previous trading session, indicating a surged by 31.2 percent or 65.21 million.
According to the CBN report, the intervention, which amounts to $25.68 billion, was aimed at boosting liquidity in the foreign exchange market and provided to authorised dealers in the wholesale segment of the market. The funds are also provided to other sectors of the economy such as agriculture, manufacturing and Small and Medium Enterprises segment.
According to the bank, customers that require foreign exchange for tuition fees, medical payments and Basic Travel Allowance, among others, were also allocated funds from the intervention.
The Intervention was able to ensure that the CBN’s Interbank exchange rate to remain stable as the local currency exchanged at N306.90 to a single Dollar on Thursday.
The report showed that interbank sales rose by 67.7 percent to $0.21 billion compared with the increase of 50.3 percent in July.
At the parallel market, the Naira remained unchanged against the US Dollar, the Pound, and the Euro. The local currency went for N360/$1, N398/€1 and N464 to £1.
The apex bank has said that it was committed to ensuring that there is stability in the foreign exchange market in order to drive macroeconomic stability.
Modupe Gbadeyanka