Naira goes to 440 per dollar.

The naira was sold at the parallel
market for 440 per dollar on Sunday, as
the lingering foreign exchange scarcity
increased to a new level.
The local currency, which closed at 436/
dollar on Thursday, eased to 435 in the
early hours of Friday. It closed at 439/
dollar.
 The naira had closed at 428 to the
greenback on Wednesday, down from
424 on Tuesday, as lingering foreign
exchange shortage weighed on the
economy.
The latest declines in the naira value
started on Wednesday, a day after the
Central Bank of Nigeria’s Monetary
Policy Committee retained the
benchmark lending rate at 14 per cent.
The MPC had after its two-day bi-
monthly meeting left the Monetary
Policy Rate unchanged, rebuffing calls
for rates cut by analysts, stakeholders
and some government officials,
including the Minister of Finance, Mrs.
Kemi Adeosun.
However, economic and currency
analysts have said the decline in the
value of the local currency against the
dollar has nothing to do with the MPC
decision.
At the interbank market, the naira
closed at 307.79 on Friday. It closed at
307.25, 311 and 312 on Tuesday,
Wednesday and Thursday respectively,
according to data posted on the FMDQ
OTC platform.
“There is shortage of dollar supply.
Diaspora remittances have dropped. This
is why you can see the rate dropping at
the parallel market,” an economic
analyst and Chief Executive Officer,
Cowry Asset Management Limited, Mr.
Johnson Chukwu, said.
The development came amid depleting
external reserves, which stood at
$24.8bn last Monday.
The latest data posted on the CBN
website showed that the foreign
exchange reserves were down by 3.4 per
cent from a month ago to its lowest level
in more than 11 years, as the apex bank
sells the greenback at the interbank
market to support the naira.
Economic and currency analysts had
said there had been no significant policy
response to the fall in the reserves,
further fuelling the concerns.
The Association of Bureau De Change
Operators of Nigeria had said the naira
would recover by Monday due to the
introduction of Travelex, a licensed
forex dealer.
Travelex, an international money
transfer organisation, would begin to
distribute forex to the BDC operators on
Monday (today).
The President, ABCON, Alhaji Aminu
Gwadabe, said the forex distribution
would be efficient and uniform across
ABCON members, unlike what was
obtainable in the past.
According to him, Travelex has the
technology to sell forex to about 1,000
BDCs in a couple of hours, which is a
major advantage.