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CBN says no change in Nigeria’s exchange rate structure

CBN

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has disclosed that there has not been any change in Nigeria’s exchange rate structure.

“There has been NO change in Nigeria’s exchange rate structure,” CBN announced on its twitter handle at 12:15 AM, June 12, 2019.

Data on the regulator’s website had signaled that the lender will allow the market to determine its rate, which meant it was gradually unwinding its regime of multiple exchange rates.

Checks by BusinessDay on June 11, 2019, revealed that the central stopped publishing the fixed naira exchange rate on its website, instead it said says that “the rate will be market-determined.”

  The central bank used to have an official rate as strong as 305 naira per dollar. That rate was used to ensure that some traders including, fuel importers, got cheap dollars.

The decision by the apex bank to allow the market to determine exchange rate is one that investors have clamored for.

 Investors have long accused the government of some level of capital controls and complained about the system of multiple exchange rates.

According to Yewande Sadiku, the head of the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission, the central bank is in talks with other agencies to move to a single rate for the nation’s currency.

But the recent tweet by the lender left many surprised and questioned the regulator what it meant by the statement as some said it was “vague.”

One of the responses to the announcement of the central bank asked “if there are no changes in the exchange rate structure why is the rate not displayed on the site like it used to be?”

Another tweeter handle complained about the apex bank’s tweet saying “your statement looks very ambiguous and vague. You say one thing, the market say another. There’s wide variance between the official and parallel exchange rate market. And here you’re saying the exchange rate structure remain constant. This is practically untrue.”

 

Endurance Okafor