Nigeria's central bank said it has recorded more than $1.5 billion inflows into the economy over the past few days, indicating that its monetary policy efforts are working favorably.
Bank's Executive Director, Corporate Communications Department, Smt. Sidi Ali asserted in a statement made available to The Punch on Friday.
He noted that data available to the bank indicated that the inflow was a result of the bank's efforts to stabilize the foreign exchange market.
Ali said the naira continued to post gains in the autonomous foreign exchange market as it traded at N1,309/$1 against N1,611/$1 in the second week of March 2024.
The exchange rate between the naira and the dollar closed at N1,534/$1 at the official NAFEM market on February 12, 2024. The current value of the naira shows considerable appreciation.
Recently, the CBN held its 294th Monetary Policy Committee meeting where it decided to increase the interest rate by 200 basis points to 24.75 percent from the previous 22.75 percent.
During his post-meeting briefing, the CBN Governor, Olayemi Cardoso, also reiterated that the apex bank has removed all verified foreign exchange backlogs, underlining the fact that liquidity in the foreign exchange market will improve.
The bank on Wednesday conducted an auction of N1.64 trillion of Nigerian treasury bills at stop rates of 16.24 percent, 17 percent and 21.124 percent for 91-day, 182-day and 364-day tenors respectively.
The decision to increase the interest rate raised a lot of concerns among citizens and economists, but Cardoso said the bank's decision was to stabilize the economy by bringing the interest rate in line with the country's current inflation. is long.
“An increase in interest rate may have strangulating tendencies in the economy, depressing the foreign exchange rate, which helps to moderate it overall.
“And as I said before, you would expect it would not be long drawn; At least I hope so. We are moving towards a situation where the exchange rate moderates, we expect it to moderate, and then we see a situation where it is, quite frankly, stable. It will involve a great deal of collaboration with the financial side because most of it cannot be relied upon only on the monetary side,” the governor said.
While Thursday's rate indicated that the naira was heading in the right direction, Ali assured that the Cardoso-led CBN would remain committed to ensuring market stability and proper pricing of the naira against other major currencies around the world.