Panic as Worsening Dollar Shortage Sinks Naira to N540/$1

By Adedapo Adesanya

The worsening Dollar shortage in Nigeria is beginning to cause panic in the country’s foreign exchange (FX) market, especially in the unregulated segment.

This is putting pressure on the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) as some observers and stakeholders, including manufacturers and investors, are waiting for the apex bank to quickly look into its forex policies to save the Naira from totally losing its value.

On Thursday, September 9, 2021, the Nigerian currency set a new low at the black market after it depreciated against the United States Dollar by N5 or 0.94 per cent to trade at N540/$1 in contrast to N535/$1 it quoted on Wednesday.

The forex crisis also affected the value of the Naira when compared with the other foreign currencies like the British Pound Sterling and the Euro.

Against the Pounds, it lost N10 to sell for N740/£1 versus the previous day’s N730/£1, while against the European currency, it gave up N3 to close at N632/€1 in contrast to N629/€1 of the earlier session.

It was not a different case at the Investors and Exporters (I&E) window as the domestic currency declined by 17 kobo or 0.04 per cent against the American currency to sell for N411.67/$1 compared with N411.50/$1 it traded at the midweek session.

The indigenous currency suffered this loss despite a reduction in the value of transactions at the market segment yesterday by $180.71 million or 61.2 per cent as the turnover stood at $114.68 million as against the $295.39 million recorded on Wednesday.

At the official exchange window, the Nigerian currency lost 5 kobo against the greenback yesterday to trade at N410.47/$1 in contrast to N410.42/$1 of the preceding day.

As for the cryptocurrency market, six of the 10 major digital currencies tracked by Business Post finished positive with Ripple (XRP) rising by 4.7 per cent to N629.38.

Ethereum (ETH) also grew by 4.7 per cent to close at N1,920,000.00, Dash (DASH) rose by 4.2 per cent to trade at N112,063.88, Litecoin (LTC) appreciated by 2.3 per cent to sell at N100,844.81, Bitcoin (BTC) improved by 2.0 per cent to quote at N25,102,547.56, while Tron (TRX) appreciated by 1.7 per cent to N51.80.

But the Dogecoin (DOGE) was not too lucky as its value went down by 0.7 per cent to N140.16, Binance Coin (BNB) fell by 0.3 per cent to N151,750, Cardano (ADA) depreciated by 0.3 per cent to sell for N1,402.90, while the value of the US Dollar Tether (USDT) went down by 0.1 per cent to quote at N539.50.