The Naira appreciated as it exchanged to the dollar at 490/$ in the parallel market on Wednesday, after it had sold for N500 on Monday.
The Bureau De Change (BDC) operators had attributed the devaluation the naira is currently experiencing to speculative activities of some operators but the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) however retained the official exchange rate at N379/$ on its website.
During the Annual Bankers Dinner organised by the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria in Lagos on Friday, the CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, spoke on the exchange rate.
He said, “Like other emerging market countries and countries reliant on oil exports, the decline in crude oil earnings as well as the retreat by foreign portfolio investors significantly affected the supply of foreign exchange into Nigeria.
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“In order to adjust for the decrease in supply of foreign exchange, the naira depreciated from N305/$ to N360/$ and subsequently to N380/$.
“With the decline in our foreign exchange earnings and successive exchange rate adjustments, the CBN has continued to implement a demand management framework, which is designed to bolster the production of items that can be produced in Nigeria, and aid conservation of our external reserves.”
Due to the unprecedented nature of the shock, he said, it had continued to favour a gradual liberalisation of the foreign exchange market in order to smoothen exchange rate volatility and mitigate the impact which, rapid changes in the exchange rate could have on key macro-economic variables.
