A source at the apex bank who spoke to the News Agency of Nigeria over the weekend, said that the CBN had not underestimated the value of naira, but scarcity of foreign currencies was responsible for the depreciation of the naira at the parallel market.
According to him, the CBN has always supported for diversification of sources of foreign exchange into the country rather than depending solely on sale of crude oil, and that the CBN has also been championing schemes to promote local production of goods.
According to him, one of such initiatives was the introduction of the Anchor Borrowers Programme (ABP) to boost local production of rice and wheat regarded as two of the four products that dominated the food import bill, while another is a policy called Produce, Add Value and Export to earn Forex (PAVE).
The rationale behind the two initiatives was to improve and deepen the foreign exchange market by improving supply of foreign exchange into the market, he said.
