The free fall of the Naira against the Dollar appears unstoppable as the Nigerian currency traded for N506 to $1 down from N500 recorded on Thursday, February 9, 2017.
Against the British Pounds Sterling and the European Euro, the Nigerian Naira weakened to N617 and N531 respectively down from the N615 and N530 recorded the previous day.
However, on the official market, it remained at N305.25 to dollar, where it has been trading since last August.
The latest crash of the Naira is the worse in the History of the country.
The Head of Africa Research, Standard Chartered Bank, Razia Khan, blamed the fall on scarcity of foreign currency in circulation. She said: “Despite rising FX reserves, it’s the amount of the FX that is supplied that matters. The parallel market, by its nature, is particularly sensitive to demand-supply imbalances, and has a tendency to overshoot,”
Last week, the Central Bank of Nigeria sold $660m in three and five-month currency forwards at an auction aimed at clearing a backlog of dollar demand but traders stated it was not enough to satisfy the market.
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