CBN boosts Forex market with $195m

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), on Monday, offered $195 million in three segments of the Foreign Exchange Market (Forex) to boost liquidity in the operation.
Mr Isaac Okorafor, CBN’s Acting Director, Corporate Communications Department, said this in a statement in Abuja.
Okorafor said that in the wholesale segment of the inter-bank Foreign Exchange market, it auctioned $100 million and also intervened in the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) with $50 million.
He said the bank also offered the invisible segments, with $45 million.
He said the bank had kept fate with its resolve to ensure that there was sustained liquidity in the market following pressures on the market from those seeking forex for school fees and vacations.
He stated that the bank would also ensure that genuine requests for FOREX were met, as well as improved liquidity and flexibility in the market.
This comes on the heels of last week’s intervention in which the retail secondary market intervention sales (SMIS) received the largest allocation of about $264 million.
The authorised dealers in the wholesale window had also received $100 million.
The CBN, in a bid to improve forex availability in the market and ameliorate challenges encountered by critical stakeholders, said payment for port charges to the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) would be accommodated by the bank, using Form ‘A’.
The CBN further said that other agencies by oil marketing companies would also be accommodated by the bank, using the same form.
The move by the CBN is to speed up operations at the ports, thereby enhancing the ease of doing business in the country.