Naira appreciates against US dollar, as CBN clarifies plans to stop forex sales to banks

Naira recorded a meagre appreciation against the U.S. dollar at the official market as concerns on the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) stopping the sales of forex to commercial banks eased.

Data recorded on the FMDQ website where forex is officially traded showed the local currency closed at N416.00/$1 on Friday.

This represented a 0.16 per cent or 67 kobo appreciation when compared with N416.67/$1 of the previous session at the Investors and Exporters (I&E) segment of the foreign exchange market.

The growth posted by the I&E window was buoyed by a low turnover of forex transactions, which stood at $84.65 million, 28.9 per cent or $25.1 million lower than the $109.75 million achieved a day earlier.

Similarly, at the Interbank market, data from CBN showed that Naira closed at N416.91to the US dollar compared to N417.51/$ it exchanged on Thursday last week.

On the same market, it was a flat trade between Naira and British pounds at N566.73/£1 and also remained unchanged against the Euro to settle at N477.42/€1.

It was also good performance for Naira at the parallel market as it gained N1 or 0.17 per cent to close at N573/$1 compared to N574/$1 it was transacted at the previous session.

Read also: Naira falls to N580 per dollar, as CBN moves to stop sale of forex to banks

Naira’s good performance came after the CBN clarify an earlier report on the sale of dollars to banks.

Godwin Emefiele at the end of the Bankers Committee meeting held on Thursday, February 11, 2022, was reported to have said forex sales to banks will be stopped at the end of 2022.

Emefiele’s words, “The era is coming to an end when, because your customers need 100 million dollars in foreign exchange or 200 million dollars, you now want to pack all the dollars and pass it to CBN to give you dollars.

“It is coming to an end before or by the end of this year. We will tell them don’t come to the Central Bank for foreign exchange again, go and generate your export proceeds.”

However, in a statement credited to anonymous sources from CBN, several media reports said there was no immediate plan as earlier reported.

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