The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) sold some $100million in the interbank spot market on Tuesday, providing liquidity after it had intervened the previous and first day of auction in the new FX regime.
The currency of Africa’s largest economy closed at N284 to the dollar second day of trading after exchanging at 282/$ the previous day.
Isaac Okorafor, CBN Acting Director, corporate communications confirmed the latest intervention by the apex bank. “Yes it is true, the CBN sold $100m today,” he told BusinessDay last night in a telephone chat.
But he could not actually confirm when the CBN would likely sell additional dollars in the market, as he reminded that the regulator will be participating like every other participant.
Nigeria’s new foreign exchange market made a robust take-off on, Monday, clearing all the backlog of $4bn pent-up demand for foreign exchange with the Naira exchanging at 282 to the US dollar.
Okorafor had said Monday night that the CBN was happy that the objectives of the CBN to clear the FX demand backlog, perform its role as strictly a market intervention participant; and re-launch a functioning and efficient inter-bank market, were being met.
Okorafor was optimistic that with the Monday’s intervention, all the backlog was actually cleared while hoping that liquidity would improve in the market over time.
Onyinye Nwachukwu
