The foreign exchange daily turnover at the Investors and Exporters (I&E) window on Wednesday declined by 17.74 percent to $279.72 million compared to $340.04 million recorded the previous day.
The total capital importation through the I&E window in June 2019 stood at US$1.42bn, the lowest monthly figure recorded since July 2017.
Analysts at FSDH Research expects a total inflow of about N1.09trn to hit the money market from the various maturing government securities and the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) in July 2019.
The nation’s currency on Wednesday depreciated against the US dollar by N1.00k at the investors and exporters foreign exchange window.
After trading on the same day, naira closed at N361.61k per dollar as against N360.61k traded last week Wednesday, which represents 0.28 percent loss, data from FMDQ show.
The local currency closed at N306.95k per dollar and N360/$ at the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) official window and the Bureau De Change (BDC) segment respectively.
Nigeria’s external reserves on a steady decline have dropped to $45.09 billion as at July 16, 2019, data from the CBN website indicated.
Gross official reserves declined by US$50 million in June to US$45.07 billion. “We suspect that this modest decline was driven by a slowdown in inflows from foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) on the investors’ and exporters’ window (NAFEX): these amounted to US$1.10 billion in the four weeks of June, compared with US$1.34bn in the previous month”, analysts at FBNQuest said.
Nigeria’s stated reserves provide cover for 13.3 months of merchandise imports at 2018 levels, and 7.5 months when services are added.
For Egypt and for the 2017/18 fiscal year (July-June), the comparable figures are 8.4 months and 7.2 months. Egypt has a far worse balance on goods than Nigeria but its services account is much stronger.
HOPE MOSES-ASHIKE
