Nigeria’s External Reserves Decline by $50.84 Million to $35.69 Billion

Nigeria’s foreign reserves declined by $50.84 million in eleven days to $35.69 billion, according to the latest data from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

In the data released on the apex bank website, the nation’s foreign reserves stood at $35.75 billion as of October 2, 2020 but depreciated to $35.69 billion on October 13, 2020.

The foreign reserves plunged from $44.25 billion posted on August 19, 2019 to $41.85 billion as of September 30, 2019 before sustaining the downward trend to $36.30 billion on June 19, 2020 despite the Central Bank of Nigeria devaluing the Naira twice to prevent huge capital flight that trailed COVID-19 outbreak.

Weak oil prices amid low demand for the commodity compounded Nigeria’s woes as the central bank continues to struggle to sustain foreign exchange intervention and ease dollar scarcity in a nation that depends on imports for most of its consumption.

However, the plunge in revenue generation alongside low foreign direct investment due to the weak economic outlook and low investment sentiment, negatively impacted the attractiveness of Nigerian assets.

The apex bank, in its monthly report released for May, said “Nigeria’s international reserves decreased marginally from $36.43bn at end-April to $36.19bn at end-May 2020.

“The net decrease in reserves was due to the sales of foreign exchange at the Secondary Market Intervention Sales and Investor and Exporter windows as well as payments to external creditors.

“Thus, the level of import cover for goods and services, decreased from 4.0 months in April to 3.9 months in May 2020, but remained above the IMF threshold of 3.0 months.

“A comparative analysis of reserves per capita in May 2020 showed that Nigeria’s reserves per capita was $176.58, compared to $889.73 for South Africa, $491.10 for Angola, $218.94 for Egypt and $24.10 for Ghana.

It explained that “Sequel to the COVID-19 pandemic, the viability of the external sector in 2020 is expected to deteriorate, given the present worsening current account balance and depletion of external reserves driven, largely, by decelerating export receipts, particularly oil.

“Specifically, the degree of external reserves accumulation is expected to decelerate, as outflows are expected to outweigh inflows.

“As a result, external reserves are expected to lie between $29.9bn and $34.3bn at end-December 2020 (predicated on current declining oil price between $20 and $40).”