Naira traded at N441 to United States Dollar at the Investors and Exporters (I&E) foreign exchange window managed by FMDQ Group on Wednesday.

The local currency opened at N440 before dipping slightly to N441.50 against the greenback. Investors at the window exchange $127.65 million in forex transactions.

At the interbank forex segment, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) sold the U.S. Dollar N437.11, up from N436.98 it traded on October 18, 2022.

Naira to Dollar Black Market

The Nigerian Naira remained under pressure at the parallel market, popularly known as the black market. The local currency extended its decline to N743 against the United States Dollar. Slightly lower than the N740 it exchanged a few days ago.

The CBN had warned against patronising that section of forex given the risk associated with it and the damage unregulated forex traders, speculators and hoarders are doing to the nation.

Meanwhile, on Monday the Bank of America said the Nigerian Naira would decline by an additional 20% in 2023.

According to the bank, the projection was based on three key factors; the widely-used black-market rate, the CBN official rate, and the bank’s fair value analysis of the Naira showed that the local currency would decline by 20% at the official forex section to N520 against the U.S. Dollar.

Tatonga Rusike, an economist with the financial institution, said “We see scope for it to weaken by an equivalent amount over the next six-nine months, taking it to as high as N520/$.”

Rusike also argued that the Nigerian Naira would be pressured going forward by government-limited external borrowing.  This, he said would hurt the dollar inflow necessary to augment the government’s dwindling foreign revenue generation.

However, the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) refuted Bank of America’s position on the Nigerian Naira.

NMDPRA believed once Dangote’s 650,000 refinery start operations in 2023, Nigeria’s net petroleum import estimated at about $50 billion per year would drop to zero. This would give the country extra fiscal space to ease Nigeria’s liquidity issue and prop Naira value against global counterparts.