Nigeria’s currency on Tuesday exchanged with the dollar at N460, depreciating by N1.00k from N459 it stood since last week at the Bureau De Change (BDC) segment of the foreign exchange market.
Operators of BDC numbering over 5,000 across the county received over $50 million from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) amid the End SAS protest on Tuesday.
Aminu Gwadabe, President of Association of Bureau De Change Operators of Nigeria (ABCON) said the protests could not stop the disbursement as measures were put in place.
“All necessary precautions have been deployed to ensure smooth operations nationwide,” Gwadabe told BusinessDay on Tuesday.
The Apex bank sells $10,000 twice weekly to the BDC segment of the foreign exchange market. The banks and financial institutions regulator has sold over $500 million to BDCs since September 7, 2020, when it resumed dollar sales to them.
Naira exchanged at an average rate of N461 on the black market on Tuesday. This represents N1 appreciation when compared with N460, which the dollar was sold for at Lagos airport and Festac town. It showed a N1 loss when compared with N462 which Naira exchanged with the dollar at Eko Hotel and Apapa areas of Lagos.
The foreign exchange market at the Investors and Exporters (I&E) forex window opened with an indicative rate of N386.38k, which signaled N0.38k depreciation from N386.00k opened with on Monday, data from FMDQ revealed.
Naira weakened further by 0.04 percent as the dollar was quoted at N386.00 on Monday as against the last close of N385.83 on Friday.
The daily foreign exchange market turnover declined by 27.39 percent to $120.93 million on Monday from $166.55 million recorded on Friday.
The foreign exchange market has witnessed dollar shortages since early this year as a result of a sharp drop in oil prices, which accounts for about 90% of the country’s foreign exchange earnings and low inflows from remittances due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
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