Nigeria’s foreign reserves fell by $581.55 million in two weeks, the latest figures from the Central Bank of Nigeria showed on Tuesday.
The reserves declined from $36.47billion in January 25 to $35.89 billion as of February 9, according to the latest data obtained from the Central Bank of Nigeria.
The apex ban told International Monetary Fund last week that it had started addressing backlog of forex demands as shown by the high turnover in the investors and exporters window.
“They (Nigerian authorities) also emphasized that they are addressing the FX backlog and noted that turnover in the I&E window is on an upward trend,” IMF stated in its report on the 2020 Article IV Consultation.
The CBN said as of November last year, the external reserves fell by 1.7 per cent to $34.97 billion at end-November 2020, below the levels of $35.58 billion at end-October 2020 and by 9.9 per cent, when compared with $38.80 billion at end-November 2019.
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It attributed the depletion to increased interventions in the Investors’ and Exporters (I&E), SMIS and BDC segments of the foreign exchange market.
“Despite the increase in economic activities globally and positive news of a COVID-19 vaccine, the external reserves declined, due to lower foreign exchange receipts and sustained intervention to stabilise the exchange rate,” it added.
The CBN assured that the external reserves position could cover 6.7 months of import for goods and services or 8.1 months of import for goods only, using the import figure for the third quarter of 2020.
