Naira drops to 381/dollar despite CBN’s $205m offer

The naira depreciated slightly from 380 per United States dollar to 38i/dollar on the parallel market on Monday.

This came despite a $205m dollar injection into the foreign exchange market by the Central Bank of Nigeria.

In a statement on Monday, the CBN said ahead of the outcome of the Monetary Policy Committee meeting in Abuja, it had injected over $205m into the foreign exchange market.

A breakdown of the intervention indicated that the sum of $100m was released for the wholesale segment of the market for both spots and forwards.

Also, Basic Travel Allowance which comes under invisibles segment garnered $50m while the Small and Medium-scale Enterprises segment got $55m.

The Acting Director, Corporate Communications, CBN, Mr. Isaac Okorafor, said the newly created ‘Investors and Exporters FX Window’ had so far recorded a trade volume in the sum of $1.1bn from both the CBN and autonomous windows.

This, he said, was an indication of the appreciable level of confidence in the forex management by foreign investors and autonomous suppliers of foreign exchange to the market.

The naira, which hovered around 390/dollar about two weeks ago, has continued to appreciate on the back of continued forex injection by the CBN.

Market analysts have encouraged the CBN to continue with the latest forex policy measure.