The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on Friday confirmed that it intervened in the retail Secondary Market Intervention Sales (SMIS) of the foreign exchange (Forex) market with $317.52 million in addition to the CNY58.40 million in the spot and short-tenored forwards segment.
The apex bank indicated that the US dollar-denominated interventions were only for forex users in the agricultural and raw materials sectors while the Yuan was for Renminbi denominated Letters of Credit.
The CBN’s Director, Corporate Communications Department, Isaac Okorafor, said that the Bilateral Currency Swap Agreement (BCSA) with the Peoples’ Bank of China had continued to receive encouraging responses from customers.
While noting that Friday’s sale was the fifth in the series of interventions, he said the BCSA was achieving its major objectives of reducing the use and influence of a third currency transactions; reducing the pressure on the naira exchange rate; easing trade transactions between Nigeria and China and maintaining financial market stability in Nigeria.
Okorafor restated the apex bank’s commitment to ensuring that all the sectors of the foreign exchange market continued to enjoy access to the needed foreign exchange by Nigerians.
It would be recalled that the bank last Tuesday, had supplied $210 million to the inter-bank segment of the forex market.
At the end of trading on Friday, the Naira maintained its exchange rate stability against foreign currencies, exchanging at N361/$1 at the Bureau de Change (BDC) segment of the forex market, while it exchanged at N53 to CNY 1.
