As the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) allocated $240 million to the Retail Secondary Market Intervention Sales (SMIS) last Friday, its  series of injection into the foreign exchange(forex)  market may have hit $6.38billion.

Analysis shows that since February 21, when  the apex bank’s interventions began, up to the last Friday that preceded the Eid-el-Fitr holiday, CBN had intervened for 28 times and sold $6.38 billion. This aside its dollar sales to bureaux de change (BDCs) and special dollar sales to the real sector

But these intervention have seen the nation’s reserves dip from over $29.613 billion at the beginning of June to $29.496 billion by June 16.

This notwithstanding, CBN has assured the nation that its commitment to providing enough forex for legitimate business remained unshaken, adding that it would do everything possible to ensure the steady supply of forex to the market.

Monthly Dollar demand by end users was sometimes put at $4billion. But  CBN doubted this,  saying that much of the dollar demands seen at the forex market early this year had been a bubble created by speculators and hoarders of the greenback.

This was because most banks could not absorb the amount of forex offered for sale by the apex bank.

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However, in the last trading day preceding the Muslim holidays, CBN allocated $240 million to the Retail Secondary Market Intervention Sales (SMIS) for spot and forward deals.

The bank, also sold forex to dealers in the Bureau de Change (BDC) segment of the market to meet the needs of low-end forex users.

According to the CBN’s acting Director, Corporate Communications, Isaac Okorafor, the $240million released to the Retail SMIS included deals initiated in the course of the week.

While expressing delight at the stability in the forex market, Okorafor said the bank remained optimistic that its goal of exchange rate convergence was fast becoming a reality, adding that the CBN was committed to ensuring liquidity in the forex market.

Recall that the CBN, in its interventions last week, injected about $831.5 million in the inter-bank forex market and data also indicated that the bank had boosted transactions at the Investors’ & Exporters’ (I&E) segment of the market to the tune of $2.2billion.