The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has said it would soon clear all outstanding foreign exchange (FX) owed in forward contracts in the next few days as USD and other foreing currencies’ inflow improves following the current reforms by it to mitigate the FX market volatility and stabilise the Naira.
The CBN governor, Dr. Olayemi Cardoso, who gave this hint on Thursday an investor call said that outstanding FX backlog was USD owed five banks.
According to him, the apex bank is confident that it will shortly be in a position where the whole issue of forwards would be settled
Specifically, he said: “I would say in the next few days we should be in a position where the balance of the five (banks) would have been put behind us.”
Cardoso disclosed that in the first two months of this year, Nigeria had attracted $2 billion in foreign portfolio investments, demonstrating the efficacy of the current reform initiatives of the apex bank.
He clarified: “Last year, for example, the total amount of influx from FPI dwindled considerably to over $3 billion and already this year just from the little (reforms) we have done we have attracted $2 billion.
“My point is that with the right policies, right approach, an open and transparent mechanism, inflows will start to come in”, the CBN governor added.
It would be recalled that at the last CBN Monetary Policy Committee’s (MPC’s) meeting, the apex bank disclosed that $400 million out of the previous outstanding $2.2 billion was cleared.
Analysts believe that the $2 billion investment inflows into the country in the first two months of 2024 remained higher than the total foreign portfolio inflows of $1.15 billion it recorded in 2023 and represented about 50% of total foreign capital inflows of $3.9 billion that year.
