CBN intervened in foreign exchange market with $2.8bn in December, January

Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has said that it disbursed a total sum of $2.83 billion to intervene in the foreign exchange market for utilization in the critical sectors of the economy in the last two months, December 2016 and January 2017.

According to Acting Director, Corporate Communications Department, Mr. Isaac Okorafor, manufacturing, raw material and agriculture topped the list of beneficiary sectors, in an exercise he said targeted employment generating and wealth creating sectors of the economy.

He said that $609 million and $228 million were released for raw materials in the months of December and January respectively while manufacturing also attracted the sum $53 million and $71 million, respectively, during the period under review. A further analysis of the disbursements, the Ag Director said indicated that $1.839 billion and $0.989 billion, respectively, were extended to critical sectors like agriculture, petroleum products and airlines, among others in December 2016 and January 2017.

Commenting further on the development, Mr. Okorafor, stressed the determination of the apex Bank to continue to ease the foreign exchange pressure on critical sectors. The CBN had in November 2016, supported the critical sectors with $1,070,175,392.04 equivalent of foreign exchange for agricultural machinery, industrial raw materials, spare-parts and education, as well as, personal travel allowances through the interbank foreign market.