CBN boosts Retail SMIS with $396.18m

From Ngozi Onyeakusi, Lagos

In its relentless move to guarantee liquidity in the foreign exchange market, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has intervened in the Retail Secondary Market Intervention Sales (SMIS) segment of the market to the tune of $396.18million.
According to figures obtained from the CBN on Friday, April 20, 2018, the released sum is meant to meet obligations in the agricultural, airlines, petroleum products and raw materials and machinery sectors.
Confirming the figures, the Bank’s Acting Director, Corporate Communications Department, Isaac Okorafor said that interventions by the CBN in both the retail and wholesale sectors of the forex market were targeted primarily at ensuring liquidity in the market as well as encouraging production and trade, particularly now that the focus was on the promotion of local content.
Okorafor further explained that with the country’s reserves nearing $50 billion, the Bank was even more determined to sustain the gains recorded through the various policy options the Bank took in the course of stemming the depletion of the external reserves and steering Nigeria out of recession.
Beyond ensuring liquidity in the inter-bank sector of the market, he said the Bank was committed to supporting efforts aimed growing the economy and further diversifying it away from oil.
Despite rates closing at N362/$1 on Friday, April 20, 2018, Okorafor, insisted that the market would remain stable and that the Bank would ensure it maintains the country’s external reserves in order to safeguard the international value of the Naira.
The Central Bank of Nigeria in its last SMIS on March 23, 2018, intervened with the sum of $339.89, while also intervening in the inter-bank Foreign Exchange Market to the tune of $210,000,000, comprising of $100million for the wholesale segment and $55 million for both the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and invisibles segment on Wednesday, April 18, 2018.