The Acting Director of Corporate Communications, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr Isaac Okorafor said on Tuesday that CBN has injected $364 million in the Inter-bank market to sustain liquidity in the Forex Market.
Speaking in Abuja, Okorafor revealed that the Retail Secondary Market Intervention Sales (SMIS) received the largest allocation of about $264.1million.
He said that the CBN also offered $100 million to authorised dealers in the wholesale window; adding that the results for the requests sent to the CBN by authorised Forex dealers on behalf of their customers will be made available.
The bank remains committed to achieving a convergence of rates at the inter-bank and Bureau-de-Change segments of the market, he said.
It would be recalled that the CBN recently intervened in the wholesales, Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and invisible windows to the tunes of $195 million.
Similarly, the CBN said payment for port charges to the Nigerian Port Authority (NPA) and other agencies by oil marketing companies could now be accommodated by the bank using Form ‘A’.
A circular by the Director, Trade and Exchange Department, Wuritka Gotring, directed authorised dealers to accept the request for the payments of port charges from oil marketing companies. The circular also stated that such request should be forwarded to the CBN Forex window.
Implication of this
Pumping $364 million into the inter-bank forex market by the CBN is a move by the apex bank to increase the supply of Dollars to meet its corresponding demand in the market so as to sustain the value of Naira in terms of the Dollar.
Also, given that the CBN is currently pushing for a convergence in the gap between the exchange rate obtainable at the inter-bank forex and the parallel market, it is necessary for the apex bank to increase liquidity in the inter-bank market to meet the demand for Dollars in the inter-bank window in order to forestall any likely shortages which might lead to a currency depreciation and a widening of the gap between the two markets.
