By Ashemiriogwa Emmanuel
For the first time since June this year, the total amount in the external reserves of Nigeria has reached the $34 billion threshold.
Data obtained by Business Post from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) showed that the foreign exchange (FX) buffers increased to $34.1 billion on Wednesday, September 1 from $33.5 billion exactly a week earlier.
In other words, the nation’s FX reserves have improved by $618.4 million or 1.8 per cent within seven days.
Between Wednesday, August 25 and Friday, August 27, the total amount grew by $180 million or 0.5 per cent from $33.4 billion to $33.7 billion.
On the first business day of this week, which was on Monday, August 30, the forex reserves further went up by $271.6 million or 0.8 per cent to $33.9 billion.
The next day, the external buffers climbed to $34.0 billion after a marginal improvement of $84.5 million or 0.2 per cent.
On a broader look, it can be observed that this is the first time the reserves is experiencing such improvement since June 1, 2021, when it started dropping from the $34 billion region.
However, on a year-to-date basis, data showed that the country’s foreign savings have decreased by 4.3 per cent, which means it has lost about $1.5 billion from the $35.6 billion recorded on January 4, 2021.
While it is expected for Nigeria’s foreign reserves to leap to as high as $40 billion by the end of September 2021, the recent position of the external reserves could be attributed to the performance of the global crude oil market in recent weeks.
