Pressure Eases on Naira, Now N891.90/$1 at Official Market

By Adedapo Adesanya

The Naira soaked some pressure at the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEM) on Friday, January 26, appreciating against the United States Dollar at the close of business amid refreshed optimism in the growth of the Nigerian economy.

Nigeria is expected to see a marginal decline in inflation to around 21 per cent and a rise in gross domestic product (GDP) at 3 per cent this year, according to multiple forecasts.

However, that achieving sustainable growth in 2024 requires balancing ambitious fiscal reforms with effective budget implementation.

The forecast for the Naira, however, is not optimistic as supply constraints will remain the bane to the improvement of the FX market.

Data obtained by Business Post showed that the Naira gained 1.0 per cent or N9.06 against the greenback yesterday to sell for N891.90/$1 compared with the preceding day’s value of N900.96/$1.

But against the Pound Sterling and the Euro. it maintained stability in the official market during the trading session to quote at N1,133.28/£1 and N969.92/€1 apiece.

The supply of FX into the spot market went down on the last trading day of the week by 12.3 per cent or $14.22 million to $100.97 million from the $115.19 million published on Thursday.

In the Peer-to-Peer (P2P) forex window, the value of the Nigerian currency appreciated against its American counterpart by N7 to trade at N1,386/$1 versus the previous day’s N1,393/$1.

In the parallel market, the local currency weakened against the US Dollar on Friday by N20 to trade at N1,420/$1, in contrast to the previous day’s closing price of N1,400/$1.

In the cryptocurrency market, the bulls were dominant, with Solana (SOL) improving its value by 5.5 per cent $92.67 as more products continued to be built on its network due to its accessibility and affordability.

Bitcoin (BTC) rose by 4.3 per cent to trade at $41,853.67, Binance Coin (BNB) chalked up 4.2 per cent to $305.63, Ripple (XRP) improved by 3.9 per cent to $0.534, Cardano (ADA) increased by 3.5 per cent to $0.4858, Ethereum (ETH) went up by 2.3 per cent to $2,275.09, Litecoin (LTC) climbed 2.3 per cent to trade at $67.13, Dogecoin (DOGE) added 2.2 per cent to settle at $0.0799, and the US Dollar Tether rose by 0.2 per cent to $1.00, while the US Dollar Coin (USDC) remained flat at $1.00.