Foreign exchange users can now buy the US dollar at N319/$ and even lower compared with N321 and N322 they bought on Monday and last week at the parallel market, BusinessDay findings reveal.
Currency dealers purchased the greenback yesterday at N315/$ and N317/$ in some parts of Lagos State at the autonomous market.
President Muhammadu Buhari and Godwin Emefiele, governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), last week signed a currency swap deal with the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, with the aim of strengthening the naira against the dollar.
However, currency dealers are calling on the CBN to come up with modalities on how the yuan can be accessed.
“We expect the naira to have value as most transactions will be done in yuan,” Aminu Gwadabe, president, Association of Bureau De Change Operators of Nigeria (ABCON), told BusinessDay.
Speaking further on phone, he said, “If the CBN can come up with modalities on how to access yuan, we are going to see the trend in the value of naira.”
He said already the neighbouring countries like Mali, Ivory Coast, Benin Republic, among others, were coming to make inquiry on how to access naira and yuan.
According to Gwadabe, he sees the latest development boosting the operations of BDCs, as almost 3,000 of them will have the opportunity to trade in yuan.
“If CBN empowers BDCs on trading yuan, its objective of maintaining foreign exchange stability will be achieved,” Gwadabe said.
Emefiele had at the last monetary policy committee (MPC) said the average naira exchange rate remained stable at the interbank segment of the foreign exchange market in February.
The exchange rate at the interbank market opened at N197/$ and closed at N197/$, with a daily average of N196.99/$ between January 25 and March 14, 2016. The Committee reiterated its commitment to maintaining a stable naira exchange rate.
The MPC took note of the level of activity in the autonomous foreign exchange market as well as the rising demand in the interbank market, but observed that the data on demand for foreign exchange was being overshadowed by speculative demand.
However, the Committee charged the bank to speed up reforms of the foreign exchange market to improve certainty and eliminate noise and opportunities for arbitrage.
