Naira yesterday lost its value against the US dollar by N2.42k following a strong demand by importers and other end users.
It closed yesterday at N294.57k against the dollar, which was 0.83 percent drop compared with N292.15 it closed the previous day, data from FMDQ revealed.
The local currency also depreciated in value at the autonomous and parallel market. It lost N2 as it closed at N362/$ or 0.56 percent yesterday from N260/$ on Monday. At the parallel market, naira fell against the dollar by N3 or 0.82 percent, closing at N368/$ yesterday from N365/$ the previous day, BusinessDay findings indicated.
The Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) economic report showed that a total of $1.16 billion was sold by the CBN to authorised dealers in April 2016. This indicated an increase of 2.7 percent above the level in the preceding month, but was a decline of 50.8 percent relative to the level in the corresponding period of 2015.
Of the aggregate sales, interbank amounted to $0.92 billion or 79.3 percent, while swap contracts amounted to $0.25 billion or 20.7 percent of the total average exchange rate of the naira to the dollar at the interbank segment of the foreign exchange market, remained unchanged at N197/$, relative to its levels in the preceding month and the corresponding month of 2015, respectively.
According to the report, the gross external reserves at end-April 2016 stood at $26.60 billion, showing a decrease of 3.5 percent, relative to the level in March 2016. The observed depletion in foreign reserves was attributed to sales of foreign exchange at the interbank market. A breakdown of external reserves by ownership showed that Federation reserves was $2.45 billion (9.2%); Federal Government reserves, $5.85 billion (22.0%), and the CBN reserves, $18.30 billion (68.8%) of the total.
