Forex Intervention: CBN injects $289.76m, CNY 38.70m into Retail SMIS

Following its maiden Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting for 2019, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on Friday, January 25, 2019, injected the sum of $289.76million into the retail Secondary Market Intervention Sales (SMIS) and CNY38.70million in the spot and short-tenored forwards segment of the inter-bank foreign market. The Director, Corporate Communications Department at the CBN, Isaac Okorafor, confirmed the figures, noting that the dollar-denominated interventions were for transactions in the agricultural and raw materials sectors.

On the spot and short-tenored sales in Chinese Yuan, he said they were similarly for payment of Renminbi denominated Letters of Credit for agriculture and raw materials based on bids received from authorized dealers. While reiterating the Bank’s support to the inter-bank foreign exchange market, he disclosed that the Bank’s management was pleased with the level of stability at both the Bureau-de-Change (BDC) and the Investors’ and Exporters’ (I&E) window of the foreign exchange market. 

According to him, the CBN management was also satisfied with the current implementation of the Bilateral Currency Swap Agreement (BCSA) with the Peoples Bank of China (PBoC), coupled with a recent inflow of about US$2.8 billion Euro bond. Mr. Okorafor expressed confidence that the foreign exchange market in Nigeria will continue to enjoy stability in the coming months and beyond, given the marginal increase in the country’s external reserves.  It will be recalled that the CBN had on Tuesday, January 17, 2019 intervened in the wholesale, Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and invisibles windows of the inter-bank foreign exchange market to the tune of the sum of $210 million. Meanwhile, $1 exchanged for N361 at the Bureau de Change (BDC) segment of the foreign exchange market, while CNY1 exchanged for N53.