Nigeria’s External Reserves Climb Back to $42b

By Modupe Gbadeyanka

The external reserves of Africa’s largest economy returned to $42 billion after one month it fell below this present level.

Data obtained by Business Post from the online portal of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) showed that as at Wednesday, November 2, 2018, the amount left in Nigeria’s foreign reserves was $41.992 billion, approximately $42 billion.

On October 31, 2018, the reserves depleted to $41.995 billion from $42.062 billion the previous day and since then, things have been going badly.

At a point this month, precisely on November 22, the external reserves dropped to $41.523 billion, before starting to pick up since the next day to its present level.

Business Post reports that the decline in the foreign reserves was almost becoming a source of worry for analysts, coupled with the gradual fall in the prices of crude oil in the global market.

Nigeria depends mainly on the sale of the Brent crude oil to earn foreign exchange and at the moment, the commodity goes for $58 per barrel.

For a long time, the CBN, which manages nation’s reserves, has been supporting the Naira with the weekly sale of about $210 million to currency traders in the country.

This has left Naira relatively stable at N363 to a Dollar for a long time at the parallel market until few days ago when the local currency started to lose its value against the Dollar, hitting N370 at the close of transactions yesterday.

With the price of crude oil gradually declining as well as election spendings by politicians ahead of the 2019 polls, there are renewed fears that the Naira will continue to fall.