By Dipo Olowookere
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has been advised to do everything possible within its power to converge the different foreign exchange market rates in the country into one.
President of the Association of Bureaux De Change Operators of Nigeria (ABCON), Mr Aminu Gwadabe, gave this advice on Tuesday in a chat in Lagos.
According to him, operating a single forex market rate in Nigeria would boost investors’ confidence in the market.
He argued that this was needed to further strengthen the Naira against currencies trading at the forex market.
The ABCON President said the association was willing to partner the CBN to ensure a single foreign exchange market rate and stability.
Also, Mr Gwadabe commended the apex bank for lowering the rate it sells Dollar to its BDC operators in the country.
On Monday, the leadership of ABCON had a meeting with the central bank and the bank approved to sell forex to BDCs at N357/$ with the expectation that they would sell to customers at the rate of N360/$.
The ABCON chief, who commented on this new development, emphasised that this has made the Naira firmer as the new policy has crashed the parallel market rate from N365 per Dollar to N360.50/$.
He congratulated the CBN for its bravery in dealing with the market fundamentals proactively, urging pundits to desist from hoarding, speculation, rent seeking and illegal cash boarder transfers to make the naira stronger against other currencies.
“Now with the uniformity in prices, strong fiscal buffers, fiscal discipline, Yuan swap, investors’ confidence, there is no doubt in my mind that the naira is on its journey to sovereignty in Africa,” Mr Gwadabe said.
“ABCON as a stakeholder and an umbrella body of over 3500 licensed BDCs will maintain the tenets of price discovery and transparency in our subsector.
“This is necessary to boost investors’ confidence and general price stability, accessibility of foreign exchange by critical retail end users,” he added.
Modupe Gbadeyanka