BusinessUpdate: BREAKING: Foreign Reserves Hits $46bn

Update: BREAKING: Foreign Reserves Hits $46bn

SAN FRANCISCO, March 11, (THEWILL) – Nigeria’s foreign reserves hit $46bn on Friday, March 9th, according to a Sunday tweet by the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Ag. Director of Communications, Mr. Isaac Okorafor, solidifying the nation’s solid international trading position.

THEWILL can report that Nigeria’s reserves have been on the rise steadily with the rebound of the price of crude in the international market, the return of foreign investors to the equity market and partly by the reduction of rice imports as well as increased local exports.

A follow up statement by the apex bank said the reserves grew by about $3.2 billion between February and March 2018.

The reserves at the beginning of 2018 stood at $39.3 billion, then rose to $42.8 in February before hitting the new high of $46 billion.

Okorafor attributed the continued accretion to the country’s reserves to “the Bank’s effort at vigorously discouraging unnecessary importation and reducing the nation’s import Bill; inflow from oil and non-oil exports, as well as the huge inflows through the investors and exporters window of the foreign exchange market,” which he said had attracted over $33 billion since April 2017, when it was created.

At the close of commodities trading on Friday, March 9, 2018, Brent Crude, sold at $65.49 a barrel up by 2.54%.

According to him, “the Bank’s interventions in the foreign exchange window had also helped to moderate the pressure on the FOREX reserves by sustaining liquidity in the market and boosting production and trade.”

Okorafor also noted that the CBN policy restricting access to FOREX from Nigeria’s foreign exchange market to importers of some 41 items had made a huge impact on the status of Nigeria’s reserves and boosted the supply of local substitutes for imported goods, created jobs at home and enhanced the incomes of farmers and local manufacturers.

THEWILL recalls that the CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, at the Annual Bankers’ Dinner of the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (CIBN) held in Lagos in November 2017, had projected that Nigeria’s external reserves would hit the $40 billion mark in 2018. That conservative projection has since been surpassed.

After the reserves surpassed $40bn, Mr. Emefiele last month at a closed gathering of business executives, hinted that reserves could top $55bn by December if current economic trends hold.

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