17th June, 2012
Nigeria’s Central Bank has warned against the speculative buying of foreign exchange because of the depreciation in the value of naira.
Mrs. Sarah Alade, CBN’s Deputy Governor, Economic Policy, gave the advice in an interview in Abuja.
“ I want to assure you, just like the governor had done during the monetary policy communiqué that we know the exact amount of inflow, foreign monies that come in, and were they to go out, we are in the position to know. With reserves of about $37.5 billion, we have built up reserve and we have the strength, we have the muscle to be able to have the capacity to meet the demand.
“That’s why we are assuring some group of the market that there is no need for speculative buying,’’
Alade said that there was nothing to panic about even with the downward fall in the price of oil in the international market as the apex bank had continued to monitor development. She noted that the apex bank had already built a buffer to cushion the effect of the Euro crisis on the Naira.
“The euro crisis has been going on and so far we have seen the effect; part of the effect was that the naira wasn’t coming in as it was before, but we have already built buffer and we can meet genuine demand for the dollar.
“When the demand increases, you can see that we increased what we sold. Apart from selling 400 million dollars; we also intervened in the market and on Thursday, there was 50 million dollars in the market.
She assured that the apex bank would continue to meet genuine demands and that there was no need to worry.
The naira has been depreciating over the last couple of weeks in the official market and in the week ended June 16, the naira traded at N163.5 to the dollar, a swift movement from N158.95 to the dollar in the preceding weekend.