Naira appreciates to N993/$ at parallel market as demand moderates

The naira, on Monday, appreciated at the parallel market to trade at N993 per dollar.

The figure signifies an appreciation of N2 or 0.20 percent from the N995 it traded last Friday.

Bureaux De Change operators (BDCs) told TheCable that demand for the greenback had declined in the street market.

The traders put the buying price of the dollar at N985 and the selling price at N993, leaving a profit margin of N8.

“I noticed that demand has reduced a bit and this helped the price,” said a BDC operator in the Ikeja area of Lagos.

At the official market, the local currency rose by 3.02 percent to close at N747.76/$ on Friday, according to details on FMDQ OTC Securities Exchange – a platform that oversees official foreign exchange (FX) trading in Nigeria. 

On June 14, 2023, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) unified all segments of the country’s FX windows, allowing market forces to determine the exchange rate.

Since the development, the FX market has witnessed high levels of volatility as Nigeria continues to battle the protracted liquidity crisis.

In its report, titled, “10 Points Agenda for the CBN Governor”, the Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprise (CPPE) has urged Yemi Cardoso, the governor of the apex bank, to create an autonomous window in the banking system.

This, CPPE said, is one of the many actions that will end the confidence crisis in the foreign exchange (FX) market and curb the habit of forex flow into the parallel market.