October 27, (THEWILL) – The Naira, on Friday, recorded major gains in the parallel market with the local currency recording a major rebound with dealers offering $1 to N1000 from Thursday’s N1300 – $1.
Similarly, £1 was exchanged for N1250 at the Parallel Market.
Dealers who spoke to THEWILL said they expect the Naira to continue to gain with news that Nigeria has secured over $10bn inflow to shore up its reserves.
Earlier in the week, the Federal Government said out of the $10 billion of inflows, $7 billion came from NNPCL’s forward sales while $3 billion was from Qatar.
“The inflows will help ease a liquidity crunch weighing on the Naira,” it said.
President Bola Tinubu had told summiteers at the first-panel session at the 29th Nigeria Economic Summit (#NES29) last week that he has taken steps to deal with liquidity in the FX market and made a commitment to sort out all backlog.
The President had also signed two executive orders, including an order that allows forbearance for all the cash in the economy to come in and formally boost the money supply legally.
The second executive order allows domestic issuance of foreign currency issues.
Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of Economy, Wale Edu, had at the Summit, also disclosed efforts to tame wide arbitrage and punish Naira speculators.
According to him, all dealings in the FX market, from the official to the money changers where huge arbitrage has consistently occurred, will be thoroughly monitored and offenders fished out and punished.
“Foreign exchange market will be simplified and reformed such that all legal and legitimate transactions will fall within the purview of the authorities and in the formal foreign exchange market. Anything outside that will be illegal, a criminal offence and will be punished,” Edun stated.
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