The Central Bank of Nigeria has said that it wIll take time for the naira to regain its economic strength.
The apex bank in its April edition of ‘Economic and Financial Journal’, admonished Nigerians to discipline themselves since there is no magic that can strengthen the currency urgently.
We will work to see the nation’s economy boom again, which implies that a lot more foreign exchange would have to be earned so as to boost its supply in the country.”
Governor, CBN, Mr. Godwin Emefiele, explained that the amount of effort required to address the high exchange rate of the naira to the dollar would not be easy, adding that the best thing was to bring it down considerably, especially with the various method of weekly inflows into the Nigeria banking system and the economy.
The naira, last week, appreciated in the investors and exports window, as the CBN increased the weekly intervention to N560 million.
Available data showed that indicative exchange rate for the investors and exports windows went down to N360.75 per dollar from N361 .25 per dollar the previous week.
Translating to 50 kobo appreciation for the naira, the local currency, however, remained stable at N362 per dollar in the parallel market.
Meanwhile, the volume of dollars traded in the investors and exports window dropped marginally by 2 per cent to $1.02 billion last week, from $1.04bn the previous week.
He said, ‘We have increased the weekly intervention to N560 million comprising $211 million injection and $349 million.
“We will work to see the nation’s economy boom again, which implies that a lot more foreign exchange would have to be earned so as to boost its supply in the country.”
On the Nigerian economy, the economic report journal added that regrettably, the economy is largely a mono-product economy, due to the emphasis on crude oil.
The CBN explained that not much is earned from agriculture, solid minerals, tourism and the rest yet, observing that Nigeria has large deposits of solid minerals.
It, therefore, requested Nigerians in the Diaspora to contribute to the country’s foreign exchange earnings by sending hard currency home. But it also admonished them not to engage in illegal business in a desperate move to enhance the nation’s foreign exchange reserves earnings.
