On Friday 28 May 2021, naira traded for N495/$1 in the parallel market (popularly known as black market), while it traded for N411/$1 at the importer & exporter (I&E) window.
This week, the Nigerian Naira (NGN) has lost about N9 (2.3 per cent) at the black market, according to information on abokiFX.com, a website in Nigeria that collates real live FOREX data.
Nyscinfo.com learnt that the decline in naira value at the black market came after the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) devaluation of the currency, despite a 262% increase in dollar supply.
On Monday 24, CBN had adopted the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange (NAFEX) rate dropping the official market rate of N379 per $1.
Recall that in November 2020, the Naira exchange rate had hit N500/$1 at the black market after CBN announced the devaluation of the Nigerian currency. Now, the exchange rate is heading to N500/1$.
Meanwhile, the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele, at the end of the monetary policy committee meeting on Tuesday debunked any depreciation of the currency, saying that Nigeria still operates a managed-float exchange regime.
“The NAFEX, you see, it may be N410, N409 or N411, N412 or the next day 400, so it not fixed, but it is not floating. We are still running a managed-float exchange rate,” he had said.
“This is because we are still monitoring the market. We are running a managed-float where we monitor the market to ensure the right things are happening for the good of the Nigerian economy,” he said.
Nyscinfo.com learnt that a managed float exchange rate is when exchange rates fluctuate over time, but CBN control the rate by buying and selling more currencies to maintain a specific rate.