Naira suffers 1.2% drop at parallel market
Despite the new CBN policy on stemming the sliding tide of the naira against the dollar, the local currency on Tuesday maintained a 1.2 per cent loss, exchanging at N410 per dollar, as against N401 a dollar recorded on Friday.
But at the interbank market, the naira still sold at N316, same price it sold on Friday.
CBN spokesman, Isaac Okorafor, said that there is no cause for alarm, adding, that the new policy of the bank is still being unfolded.
However, officials of the apex bank have been observed to be edgy since Friday when the parallel market, contrary to expectation of policy makers, started recording sharp difference with the naira exchange rate at the interbank market.
Just on Monday, CBN had come out with a new policy that could reduce small enterprises and startups from frequenting the black market for dollars to run their businesses.
The apex bank also agreed that to sustain the gains so far in shoring up the local currency, it will be pumping $100 million periodically to the Forex market, all aimed at ensuring a closer gap between the exchange rate at the official and unofficial markets.
It claimed that the move since February 2017 has seen naira regain almost 30 per cent of its lost value in 2016.
But the IMF has insisted that Nigeria should discontinue its current policy of tele-guiding the exchange rate of the naira and allow the market forces determine the actual rate of exchange of the currency.
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