External reserve drops by $50m as .as Naira rises to N383/$

Posted by admin Economy, Latest Politics, Naira (Currency) Tuesday, May 9th, 2017

By Babajide Komolafe The nation’s external reserve on Monday dropped by $50 million, the first time in six weeks. Since March 28th, the external reserve has been on the upward trend rising from $30.3 billion to $30.983 billion Friday last week. Data posted by the CBN on its website show that the rising trend was halted on Monday, when the reserve dropped to $30.933 billion, translating to $50 million decline. Meanwhile, the CBN approved the sale of $100 million at the Wholesale Secondary Market Intervention Sales (SMIS) auction announced on Monday.

Acting Director, Corporate Communications Department, CBN, Mr. Isaac Okorafor, confirmed this yesterday disclosing that the sales will be settled this week. The naira, yesterday, appreciated to N383 per dollar in the parallel market due to weak demand for the United States currency. Vanguard survey of the parallel market revealed that the parallel market exchange rate dropped from N385 per dollar on Monday to close at N385 per dollar. The decline was prompted by dollar sales bureaux de change (BDCs) yesterday by the CBN. The apex bank sold $20,000 to each other over 3000 BDCs translating to injection of over $60 million. BDC operators also attributed to appreciation of the naira to weak demand for dollars. “The market is very slow. We don’t see people coming to demand for dollars like before”, a BDC Chief executive told Vanguard.
Read more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2017/05/external-reserve-drops-50m-naira-rises-n383/

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