The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on Friday intervened in the Retail Secondary Market Intervention Sales (SMIS) segment of the foreign exchange market with $396.18million to meet demands in the agricultural, airlines, petroleum products and raw materials and machinery sectors.
In a statement issued confirming the figures, the apex bank’s Acting Director, Corporate Communications Department, Isaac Okorafor, pointed out that intervention in both the retail and wholesale sectors of the forex market were targeted at ensuring liquidity in the market as well as encouraging production and trade, particularly now that the focus was on the promotion of local content.
Okorafor further explained that with the country’s reserves nearing $50 billion, the bank was more determined to sustain the gains recorded through the various policy options the bank took in the course of stemming the depletion of the external reserves and steering the country out of recession.
In addition to ensuring liquidity in the inter-bank sector of the market, he stated that the bank was committed to supporting efforts aimed growing the economy and further diversifying it away from oil.
Despite a slight depreciation of the Naira which closed at N362/$1 at the end of day’s trading Okorafor, insisted that the market would remain stable and that the Bank would ensure it sustained the beefing of the country’s external reserves in order to stabilize the Naira.
It would be recalled that the apex bank in its last SMIS segment intervention on March 23, 2018, supplied the sum of $339.89 million.
Last Wednesday, the bank also intervened in the inter-bank foreign exchange market to the tune of $210,000,000, comprising of $100 million for the wholesale segment and $55 million for both the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and invisibles segment.
