By Modupe Gbadeyanka
A total of $325.64 million has been injected into the Retail Secondary Market Intervention Sales (SMIS) by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
It was released into the forex window to sustain market liquidity in order to boost production and trade.
According to the CBN’s Acting Director in charge of Corporate Communications, Mr Isaac Okorafor, the amount released was for requests in the agricultural, airlines, petroleum products and raw materials and machinery sectors.
Mr Okorafor noted that feedback from the wholesale and retail segments of the Nigerian forex markets showed that customers were satisfied with their level of access to foreign exchange and said the degree of optimism displayed by all players underscored the fact that everyone was happy with the level of transparency in the market.
He added that the continued interventions were in line with the assurances made by the apex bank governor, Mr Godwin Emefiele, to keep the market liquid.
Mr Okorafor assured that, with the recession now over and foreign reserves now standing at $42 billion, the CBN had enough in its arsenal to maintain the international value of the Naira as well as guarantee access to forex by those requiring it to meet genuine needs.
He also reiterated that the desire of the central bank to ensure that all, particularly low end users, had access to foreign exchange to meet genuine needs prompted the Bankers’ Committee, in its first meeting of 2018, to agree to sell Dollars to those requiring it for invisibles at the rate of N360/$1, without any commission whatsoever.
