Naira appreciates at parallel market, official window

The naira appreciated in the parallel section of the foreign exchange (FX) market on Friday. 

At the Lagos street market, currency traders, also known as bureau de change (BDC) operators, quoted the naira at N1,510 to the greenback.

The traders put the buying price of the dollar at N1,480 and the selling price at N1,510 — leaving a profit margin of N30.

The figure represents an appreciation of N40 or 2.65 percent from the N1,550/$ traded on May 15.

At the FMDQ Exchange, a platform that oversees official foreign exchange (FX) trading in Nigeria, the local currency appreciated by 2.45 percent or N36.66 to N1,497.33/$ on Friday — from N1,533.99/$ on May 16.

During trading hours, an exchange rate of N1,555 to the dollar was the highest rate recorded and the lowest rate was N1,415/$.

At the official window, a daily turnover of $83.50 million was recorded.

On May 16, the Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprise (CPPE) urged the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to peg the exchange rate benchmark for computation of import duty between N800 and N1,000 per dollar — to be reviewed quarterly.

Muda Yusuf, CPPE’s director-general, said this is important to lessen the pass-through effect of heightening trade costs on inflation.