Dollar
Dollar at N876. The naira continued to depreciate against the dollar on Sunday, trading for 876/$ in the black market.
Some Bureau de Change employees who talked with The PUNCH claimed that a week ago, the local currency had swapped to the dollar at a rate of 820.
The Central Bank of Nigeria recently unified the country’s exchange rates, but the naira has since fallen against the dollar as a result of a lack of liquidity, rumors, and other issues.
A BDC operator in Lagos who spoke with our correspondent said, “Naira is currently bought and sold at 850/$ and 876/$. The exchange rate has not been stable for some time now.”
Alli Ibrahim, a different BDC operator, commented, “Things are getting more pricey. As of Friday, we were exchanging and purchasing naira at 850 and 865 dollars.
Dr. Muda Yusuf, chief executive officer of the Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprise, stated that a variety of factors were clearly exerting pressure on the foreign exchange market.
He claimed that in the previous month, there had been an odd uptick in monetary expansion.
Money supply increased by an astonishing 15% in one month between May and June 2023, according to Yusuf. From N55.7tn to N64.9tn, the total amount of money increased by over N9tn. This acceleration of economic growth is unparalleled. This must have had an impact on the currency rate, obviously.
He said that the monetary authorities should look into this sharp increase in the money supply and take action to prevent further expansion.
“Such dramatic growth in money supply poses a significant risk to macroeconomic stability, especially price stability,” he declared.
He claimed that due to the severe illiquidity in the foreign exchange market, there had been an accumulation of unmet foreign exchange demand over the previous few years that was in the billions of dollars range.
According to him, the pressure of the backlog of unfulfilled orders and other maturing currency-related commitments had been unleashed on the investors’ and exporters’ window with a more liberalized forex market.
The naira, on the other hand, strengthened 3.24 percent against the dollar last week at the Investor & Exporter forex window.
According to information from FMDQ Securities’ official trading website, the value of the naira increased marginally by 3.24 basis points to 777.82/$. It was 803.90/$ at the conclusion of the previous week.
The naira had a $77.99m total turnover as of Friday, with an intraday high of 855/$ and a low of 665/$.