A sharp increase in the forex market in recent days has led to the Nigerian external reserves increasing by $595 million in just 5 days. This brings the total of Nigeria’s external reserves to $26.196 billion. This boost represents a 2.2% increase in just 5 days.
This increase, ThisDay reports, is due to renewed confidence of both local and foreign investors in the fixed income market given the attractive yields. The increased activity was especially evident yesterday when, as compared to the $50 million average and $100 million peaks that forex trading accrues, $327 million worth of trades yesterday was accrued from the forex market.
Citibank Nigeria alone, purchased $270 million worth of 11-months treasury bills on behalf of offshore investors at N345 per dollar. ThisDay also learned that the Central Bank sold an undisclosed amount of dollars close to the end of market session, to help prop up the naira
Earlier, the Central Bank said that it planned to offer N212.85 billion treasury bills maturing between 91-days and 1-year this week. The central bank said it would sell N45.85 billion worth of the 91-day bills, N62 billion of the 182-day paper and N105 billion of the 1-year debt.
This continues attempts by the CBN to attract offshore funds that left the country on the back of plunging oil prices leading to financial crisis in the country.
Parts of thsi article originally appeared in Punch Newspapers
