Naira depreciates again, falls to 226/$1

The naira further depreciated against the dollar at the parallel market this week, losing N2 to the dollar on Friday.

It traded at N226 to the dollar in Lagos on Friday, down from N224 last week, hitting its lowest point in the fourth quarter of 2015.

However, the naira was stable against the dollar at the interbank, trading at N197, a pegged price range employed by the Central Bank to control rates in the commercial banking system.

Traders told NAN that the market appeared to have defied regulatory policies targeted at saving the naira from further depreciation.

The local currency which has been under strain for months, began defying CBN balancing measures of selling dollars to Bureau De Change (BDC) twice a week, as it depreciated on Wednesday, despite the intervention of the apex bank.

CBN measures of selling dollars to BDC operators is aimed at closing the gap between official and unofficial prices at which the naira is traded.

The CBN has insisted that it would not let the currency be at the mercy of market forces despite pressure to further devalue the naira.

President Muhammadu Buhari has endorsed the decision of the bank not to further devalue the naira.

“The naira has been devalued, it used to be around 160, and now, it is hovering around 200 and above and I don’t think it is healthy for us to have the naira devalued further,” he had said during his last trip to France.

This means that the government may continue to spend billions of naira to defend the local currency.