The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has claimed that over $1.5bn came into the Nigerian economy over the past few days, indicating that its monetary policy efforts are yielding the much needed fruits.
Mrs Sidi Ali who is the CBN’s Acting Director of Corporate Communications Department, made this disclosure in a statement which was obtained by Africa Today News, New York on Saturday.
She pointed out that data available to the bank indicated that the inflows resulted from its concerted effort to stabilize the foreign exchange market.
According to Ali, the Naira has also continued to record gains in the Autonomous Foreign Exchange market as it traded at ₦1,309/$1 on Friday against ₦1,611/$1 in the second week of March 2024.
While noting that Thursday’s rate signified that the naira was headed in the right direction, Ali assured that the Cardoso-led CBN would remain committed to ensuring the stability of the market and the appropriate pricing of the Naira against other major currencies worldwide.
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The CBN harmonised the country’s exchange rate on June 14, 2023, causing naira to weaken to over 1,600/$ at the official market.
Meanwhile, the CBN held its 294th MPC meeting Monday to Tuesday, where it raised the benchmark interest rate by two per cent to 24.75 per cent.
It had previously reviewed the lending rate by four per cent to 22.75 per cent in February.
During his post-meeting briefing, the CBN Governor, Mr Olayemi Cardoso, reiterated that the apex bank had cleared all verified foreign exchange backlog, underscoring the fact that liquidity would improve in the foreign exchange market.
The bank conducted a Treasury Bills auction of N1.64trn on Wednesday, at stop rates of 16.24 per cent, 17 per cent, and 21.124 per cent for the 91-day, 182-day, and 364-day tenors, respectively.
The decision to increase the interest rate raised lots of concern among citizens and economic experts, but the governor of the apex bank said the decision was intended to stabilise the economy by bringing interest rate at par with the current inflation in the country, stating that the increase would not be long.