The Nigeria national currency, the naira, has fallen to 230 against dollars, report says on Thursday.
This is coming barely 10 days after the CBN stopped forex sale to importers of rice, textile and 39 other items, the naira on Wednesday crashed to 230 against the United States dollar at the parallel market, down from 218 recorded on June 23 when the new forex rule was introduced.
The naira had fallen to 220, 223, 226.5 and 228 against the dollar in the past one week. Black market and BDC operators, however, told our correspondent that serious dollar liquidity squeeze was already hitting the market and operators were no longer in possession of huge stock of forex to meet rising demands, especially from the importers of the banned items.
Using the CBN figures, analysts had estimated that about $5.7bn quarterly forex demand was being transferred from the official interbank market to the black market. “The situation is getting critical now. There is serious dollar liquidity squeeze in the market now. The demand is overwhelming and both the black market and the BDC segment can no longer meet the demand,” a black market operator told our correspondent on Wednesday.
“The market is very volatile now as a result of the restrictions placed on about 41 items by the central bank. Most importers are now patronising the parallel market to source their dollars,” the head of a BDC, Mr. Harrison Owoh, told Reuters on Wednesday,.Meanwhile, the Association of Bureau De Change Operators has written to the CBN asking it to intervene in the dollar scarcity in the parallel market and the BDC segment to save the naira from crashing further.
