Naira strengthens against dollar, trades N786/$ at official window

The naira, on Wednesday, appreciated further at the Nigerian autonomous foreign exchange market (NAFEM).

The NAFEM window is the country’s official foreign exchange (FX) trading platform.

Data from FMDQ Securities Exchange, a platform that oversees FX trading in Nigeria, showed that the naira strengthened to N786.02 per dollar.

The FX rate represents a 3.59 percent appreciation of the local currency from the N815.32/$ recorded on the last trading day (Tuesday).

The official window recorded an intra-day low of N700 and a high of N1,101 to the dollar on Wednesday.

The daily market turnover rose by 41.82 percent to $105.98 million on Wednesday — from $74.7 million recorded the previous day.

The naira had recorded a slight gain at the parallel section of the market on Tuesday — trading at N1,185 to the greenback.

JP Morgan, a US multinational financial services firm, projected that the Nigerian currency would trade at about N850 to the dollar before the end of 2023.

According to JP Morgan, achieving the N850/$ FX rate would require a combination of tighter policy, more attractive rates, and FX levels that discourage additional dollarisation while also attracting some foreign capital.

On October 23, Wale Edun, the minister of finance and coordinating minister of the economy, had said Nigeria was expecting $10 billion in foreign currency inflows to ease liquidity in the FX market.