ABUJAJA, MARCH 7, 2017 – The Central bank of Nigeria provided on Monday $367 million to the interbank foreign exchange market at forward rates, it said in a statement.
The CBN said it sold $144 million for 45-day forward contracts and $223 million for 60-day contracts – part of a pattern of such sales in recent weeks.
The move “was in line with the bank’s determination to ease the foreign exchange pressure on various sectors through forward sales under the new flexible foreign exchange regime”, the statement said.
Nigeria’s interbank forex market traded $540,000 in early deals at 375 naira per dollar, near a record low exchange rate hit last November, Thomson Reuters data showed on Monday.
In February the central bank effectively devalued the naira for private individuals, offering to sell them the currency at around half the premium charged at the black market, in a bid to narrow the spread on the unofficial market.
