With $42bn foreign reserves, CBN to defend naira- Okorafor

CENTRAL Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on Friday said it was in the position to defend the integrity of the naira.

This statement came on a day that it again intervened in the Retail Secondary Market Intervention Sales (SMIS) to the tune of $325.64 million.

Figures obtained from the Bank on Friday, February 9, 2018, indicate that the amount released was for requests from the agricultural, airlines, petroleum products and raw materials and machinery sectors.

The figures were confirmed by the Bank’s Acting Director in charge of Corporate Communications, Mr Isaac Okorafor, who noted that the continued intervention were in line with the assurances made by the Governor, Godwin Emefiele, to sustain market liquidity in order to boost production and trade.

ALSO READ: Naira is 12% cheaper by value, says Rencap

According to Okorafor, the feedback from the wholesale and retail segments of the Nigerian Forex markets showed that customers were satisfied with their level of access to foreign exchange.

He said the degree of optimism displayed by all players underscored the fact that everyone was happy with the level of transparency in the market.

Speaking further, Okorafor assured that, with the recession now over and foreign reserves now standing at $42 billion, the CBN had enough in its arsenal to maintain the international value of the Naira as well as guarantee access to forex by those requiring it to meet genuine needs.

He also reiterated the desire of the Bank to ensure that all, particularly low-end users, had access to foreign exchange to meet genuine needs prompted the Bankers’ Committee, in its first meeting of 2018, to agree to sell United States dollars to those requiring it for Invisibles at the rate of N360/$1, without any commission whatsoever.

It will be recalled that the CBN in its last SMIS, in January 2018, injected the sum of $304.4 million in the Inter-bank Foreign Exchange Market.
Meanwhile, naira exchanged at N361/$1 in the bureau de change (BDC) segment of the market.