CBN Moves Official Exchange Rate to N380 Per US Dollar

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has started using N380 as its official exchange rate for the United States dollar, according to a BusinessDay report.

The report noted that the apex bank recently disbursed the Federal Government’s monthly allocation to the three tiers of government using the new forex rate. Therefore, resulting in over N70 billion extra payment.

While the apex bank is yet to make an official announcement and still have the N360 exchange rate stated on its website as the nation official rate, an anonymous senior official of the central bank interviewed by BusinessDay said “yes, it is aimed at moving the rate closer to that of the Investors and Exporters (I&E) window, which traded at N386/$1 yesterday.

“From time to time, adjustment would continue to happen, either upward or downward in line with market fundamentals. Certainly, no single rate can be achieved, but we would keep moving towards I&E rate.”

It would be recalled that Godwin Emefiele, the Governor, CBN, about ten days ago told a group of foreign investors that the apex bank is working towards achieving a single foreign exchange rate around the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEX)/Investors and Exporters’ Forex window.

The CBN governor had stated that “what we mean by exchange rate unification is moving towards the NAFEX. NAFEX is our dominant market for the purchase and sale of forex and it is a free market where everybody is free to sell their dollars and those who want to buy are free to buy dollars.

“That means that whether you are a businessman, a bank, CBN, and you have dollars, you can bring it to the market to sell and if you want to buy dollars, you can come to the market.

“Like some of you must have seen, three years before 2019, we saw a relatively stable forex market because the NAFEX rate and even the rate at which the central bank transacts business outside the NAFEX were substantially close to each other. So, the CBN will continue to pursue unification around the NAFEX.”

Meanwhile, the Nigerian Naira traded at a record low of N462 against the US dollar on the black market during the weekend.