Godwin Emefiele, governor, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) will on January 21 to 22, 2019 further unveil the Bank’s plans for the year during the first Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting in Abuja.
This is coming as the CBN on Friday, January 11, 2019, injected the sum of $263 million into the Retail Secondary Market Intervention Sales (SMIS), being its first intervention in that sector this year. This was in addition to the sum CNY 39 million consummated through a combination of spot and short-tenored forwards, arising from bids received from authorized dealers.
Naira on Friday appreciated against the U.S dollar, gaining N0.18k to close at N364.94k per dollar compared to N365.12k/$ traded the previous day at the investors and exporters forex window, data from FMDQ show.
At the Central Bank official forex window, the local currency traded stable, closing at the rate of N306.90k to the dollar.
However, naira lost N1.00k at the parallel market, as it closed at N363 per dollar after trading on Friday, as against N362 the previous day.
The figures obtained from the CBN revealed that the US dollar-denominated interventions were for requests in the agricultural and raw materials sectors while the Yuan sale was for payment of Renminbi-denominated Letters of Credit for agriculture as well as raw materials.
Isaac Okorafor, director, corporate communications at the CBN, said the move was in furtherance of the CBN governor’s avowed commitment to ensuring foreign exchange liquidity in the system as well as boosting trade and production.
With the rates closing at N359/$1 on Friday, January 11, 2019, Okorafor, expressed confidence that the CBN, in the weeks ahead, will sustain its intervention through the sale of foreign exchange to all segments of the market to
meet all legitimate foreign exchange demand in the market while also striving to achieve exchange rate stability in the market.
HOPE MOSES-ASHIKE
