Foreign firms devise ways to get profits out of Nigeria

Faced with increasing challenge of getting funds out of Nigeria, some foreign firms operating in the country are said to be taking innovative means to repatriate profits from naira earnings.

Sources tell BusinessDay that some businesses are resorting to exporting commodities like Gold and other Agro products to earn Foreign Exchange (FX).

Firms engaged in the practise are said to use naira they earn locally, to buy commodities and then export the commodities.

The CBN is said not to consider the repatriation of profits on its priority list for foreign exchange allocation currently. Raw material inputs and machinery for the manufacturing sector are current priorities for the apex bank.

This means that most multinational firms operating in the country have had to source their dollars from the autonomous inflows market when they have to repatriate profits or revenues. But with very low autonomous inflows, many of these firms have had to devise other means to get their profits and dividends out to shareholders outside the country.

One other strategy that has been adopted before now was to look for investors looking to make naira investments and offer them the naira in exchange for their dollar for a mutually agreed exchange rate. Even though sources also say that foreign firms can also buy dollars in the CBN forwards market to take care of their profit and dividend repatriation needs.