The Nigerian Naira on Friday, January 26, exchanged for N361 to the United States dollar in the Bureau de Change segment of the market.
This is just as the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) intervened in the Foreign Exchange Market with the sum of $304.4 million.
The Bank’s Acting Director, Corporate Communications Department, Mr Isaac Okorafor, in a statement in Abuja on Friday, reiterated that the objective of the CBN remained to boost liquidity, production and trade.
He said that “the recent interventions were in favour of interests in the agriculture, airlines, petroleum products, raw materials and machinery sectors.
“The CBN will continue to ensure liquidity in the interbank sector of the market as well as sustain its interventions in order to drive economic growth and guarantee market stability.”
Okorafor expressed optimism that the Nigerian economy stood to gain massively from the Bank’s foreign exchange management strategy.
According to him, it can be seen in the accretion to the foreign reserves, which now stands at more than 40 billion dollars.
- Currency speculators risk losses as rising reserves, oil prices strengthen naira
Meanwhile, there are strong indications that if rising reserves, oil prices in the international market and foreign exchange (forex) market liquidity are sustained, the Naira may be strengthened against other currencies from now till a greater part of 2018.
The development may spell doom for currency speculators and hoarders, including politicians who may have reserved some foreign currencies for 2019 electioneering campaigns.
The Naira’s positive outlook in the short term is riding on the back of resurging reserves’ profile, now nearing $41 billion and a stable crude oil prices at the international market, now hovering around $68 and $71 per barrel.
