Gaps in multiple forex rates narrow, naira opens at N364/$ Wednesday

Strong interventions by Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) geared towards achieving stability amidst  convergence in the exchange rate of the naira  is impacting positively on activities of Nigeria’s foreign exchange market as gap in rates narrows.

The forex market opened trading on Wednesday morning with diverse rate for dollar, coming from the multiple foreign-exchange window as the naira still remained flat at the segment of the parallel market,

The Naira remained flat at $1/N369 at the parallel market for the third trading day this week while it opened at $1/N305.80 at the official market, representing a slight drop compare to N305.75 exchanged last week.

Against other currencies, Pound and Euro, the Naira was selling at £1/N465 and €1/N408 respectively.

Also, at the Investors and Exporters Foreign Exchange (I&E FX) window, the naira fell to $1/N361.70 against opening figure of $1/369.34 traded on Monday, which was -1.34 per cent gain on Tuesday, according to data obtained from FMDQ OTC Securities Exchange website.

It would recalled that CBN intervention last week was at a tune of over $800 million in the inter-bank foreign exchange and on Monday, $195 million was injected.

A breakdown of the intervention revealed that the apex bank offered $100 million to authorised dealers’ inter-bank wholesale window, while it allocated the sum of $50 million to the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) window. The invisibles segment was allocated the sum of $45 million to meet the needs of those who applied for forex to settle Business/Personal Travel Allowances, school tuition, and medicals, among others.

CBN made two major interventions in the inter-bank forex market last week totalling $831.5 million, just as figures released by the apex bank indicated that it had boosted transactions at the Investors’ & Exporters’ (I&E) segment of the market to the tune of $2.2billion