The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), today injected the sum $340, 507, 376.51 into the interbank retail Secondary Market Intervention Sales (SMIS) segment of the nation’s foreign exchange (Forex) market.
This is even as it sold Chinese Yuan (CNY) totalling CNY69,858,087.15 in the spot and short tenored forwards. Today’s sale of the Yuan came barely a week after the apex bank commenced the maiden sale of Forex to dealers in the Chinese national currency.
Figures sourced from the CBN reflected that the dollar-denominated interventions were only for concerns in the agricultural and raw materials sectors.
The apex bank’s Acting Director, Corporate Communications, Isaac Okorafor, confirmed that the sales in the Chinese Yuan were through a combination of spot and 15-day tenors for the payment of Renminbi denominated Letters of Credit for agriculture as well as raw materials and machinery.
He pointed out that the requests attended to were bids received from authorized dealers, saying that the availability of Renminbi will, in line with the monetary policy objective, ease pressure on the Nigerian foreign exchange market.
The spokesman attributed the Forex market relative stability largely to the continued intervention of the apex bank, complemented by sustained increase in crude oil prices in the international market.
Okorafor assured that the CBN remained committed to ensuring that all the sectors enjoy access to the dollar and Yuan-denominated Forex required for legitimate business concerns nationwide.
It would be recalled that the regulatory banking institution had on July 20, 2018, commencedof its intervention in CNY sale in the Forex market to actualize the objectives of its entering into Bilateral Currency Swap Agreement (BCSA) with the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) on April 27, 2018.
The apex bank stated at the maiden sale of the CNY that there would be no predetermined spread on the sale of FX Forwards by authorised dealers to end-users under the Special SMIS-Retail. It stated that authorised dealers would be allowed to earn 50 kobo on the customers’ bids.
Meanwhile, the Naira maintained its exchange rate stability against international currencies, exchanging at N360 at the Bureau de Change (BDC) segment to the dollar and at N53.35 to CNY 1.
