CBN sells $100m this week alone

By Abimbola Tooki 

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) had sold $100 million this week alone via interventions, bringing total interventions since the start of last week to $300 million.

These interventions were adopted by the CBN to bring down the pressure on the foreign exchange rate which has had negative effects on the prices of essential commodities.

Nigeria's naira currency fell to a new record low in intraday trading on Thursday, FMDQ Exchange data showed this morning, dropping below rates quoted on the parallel market despite the central bank selling dollars to boost liquidity.

The naira fell as low as N1,851 to the dollar on the official market on Thursday, compared with around N1,800 quoted in street trading , before recovering to close around N1,571 to the dollar, FMDQ data showed.

Africa's biggest economy suffers from crippling foreign-currency shortages that have pushed the naira to repeated all-time lows on the official and parallel markets, despite the central bank intervening with dollar sales.

Next week the central bank is scheduled to hold its first interest rate meeting under Governor Olayemi Cardoso, who has pledged to support the naira and bring down inflation, which is at its highest since mid-1996.