Nigeria’s foreign reserves rose 0.2 per cent month-to-date to $31.5 billion as at last week, representing a $200 million increase from the July record, which was put at $31.3 billion.

The increase was expected given the increased efforts of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to reduce speculative attacks on the local unit, according to Ayodeji Eboh, the Head of Afrinvest Securities Limited.

“CBN continues to dismiss calls to devalue the naira. We expect that the pressure in the parallel market may soften as the foreign exchange market remains closely watched by the apex bank,” he said.

The naira, however, traded flat at N199.10/$ week-on-week at the interbank foreign exchange market, while amount of dollars sold remained reasonably below level of demand despite autonomous sales by oil companies.

CBN’s intervention in the interbank market at N197/$ pushed the week-on-week performance to stability in the segment, with its support for the action of deposit money banks to reject dollar deposits from customers into their domiciliary accounts.


“This was in a bid to stop illicit financial flows in the Nigerian Banking system and reduce the level of dollarization of the economy, with the underlying notice that banks had large volumes of foreign currency in their vaults,” Eboh added.



However, volatility was prevalent in the parallel market last week as the local unit closed at N210/$ on Monday, depreciated to N228/$ on Tuesday, but rebounded to N215.00/$ on Wednesday on account of the $80 million dollar sale made by CBN to Bureau de Change operators which boosted liquidity and eased the pressure.

The gains were pared on Thursday as the local unit depreciated to N224/$ in the parallel market, but did not come as a shock given the rise in quantity supplied, which prepared a platform for increased speculative activities.

Generally, the naira appreciated 44 basis points week-to-date to close the week at N224/$.

Onijagidijagan:
these can only happen under Sai buhari

Onijagidijagan:
these can only happen under Sai buhari

socialmediaman:
Even with drop in oil revenue? I laugh. I remember one time an ex-president told workers to prepare for hard times just because he could not control corruption and funds leakages and theft that dwarfed government revenue

queenzibah:
d increase is even very poor, cos ntg hav been done in dis country since may 29 even no ministersss so d increase is too poor cos its like our money is in fixed deposit till december. Baba go slow , poor baba y d small increase na wen u neva touch d money b4 nd havnt touch d new one comin in , nawa . Na one chance we dey . Ehe less I forget baba pls I'm misin new pix since dat ur photographer got wedded , plls sack nd probe him nd giv us corruption free photographer for more pix . Ehe baba less I forgot dat ur last pix wit obama is not full but cut also d oda group pix was cropped but dat guy charged all d same amount. Pls probe dat guy nd giv us more pix , we APC fans re misin new pix nd dats y we voted u sir. Thanks my shout out to: barcanista , tmitemi1, firefire, demdem phhocphockman , truckpusher, ishilove (my enemy) , lalasticlala (like him or her ) , seun (not his fan ) ......and others , if I didn't get ur name right pls try and answer name with good spelling nxt time