By Modupe Gbadeyanka
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has explained why it was yet to resume the sale of Dollars to operators in the Bureaux De Change (BDC) segment of the foreign exchange (forex) market for now.
According to the Director of Corporate Communications at the CBN, Mr Isaac Okorafor, the BDC operators will start to get forex allocation when the federal government decides to open the country’s airspace to international flights.
At the moment, only domestic flight operations have resumed, with the government trying to monitor the situation of COVID-19 across the globe before opening up the space.
In a chat with ThisDay, Mr Okorafor said most of the customers of BDC operators are airline passengers travelling out of the country.
“The customers of BDCs are largely travellers and when the federal government suspended international flights in order to contain the spread of the COVID-19, the BDCs requested that we grant them holidays as well.
“So, once the federal government or the Presidential Task Force (PTF) announces the resumption of international flights, we would resume forex sales to BDC,” Mr Okorafor was quoted as saying by the national newspaper.
In recent times, forex traders in the segment have called on the apex bank to restart the sale of forex to them so as to ease the pressure on the Naira.
Business Post reports that as at Monday afternoon when this report was being filed, data from the Association of Bureaux De Change Operators of Nigeria (ABCON) showed that the local currency was down against the Dollar in Lagos at N475/$1 from N473/$1 in the morning, while in Abuja, it has lost N1 to N475/$1, flat in Kano at N475/$1 and flat also in Port Harcourt at N474/$1.
Recall that on July 21, 2020, the Minister of Aviation, Mr Hadi Sirika, had hinted in a tweet on his official Twitter handle that international flights in Nigeria might resume before October.
In June 2020, the European Union (EU) barred passengers from Nigeria, the United States and others from entering the continent because of the coronavirus.
Adedapo Adesanya