Federal Government’s revenue for the second quarter of this year stood at N677.88 billion, the figure is above the receipts in the preceding quarter by 34.2 per cent, but lowers than the quarterly budget estimate by 33 per cent. The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Economic Report has disclosed.
The breakdown shows that the Federation allocation accounted for 47.7 per cent of the total revenue. “Other Oil Revenue”, Federal Government Independent Revenue, Value Added Tax (VAT) and Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) Refund and Exchange Gain accounted for 30.0 per cent, 14.9 per cent, 4.1 per cent and 3.3 per cent.
Similarly, the external reserves of the country, which have been downs for some time, received some strength as they rose by $595 million in five days to $26.196 billion on Monday. This represents an increase of 2.26 per cent, compared with $25.601 billion it was as of August 24, 2016.
According to Reuters’ reports, the rise was attributed to the inflow of funds into the country’s fixed income market as there had been renewed interest by both foreign and local investors in the fixed income market given the attractive yields.
The $270 million transaction at N345 per dollar by Citibank Nigeria which bought 11-months treasury bills on behalf of offshore investors was partly responsible for the growth.
The CBN data also showed that foreign exchange inflow and outflow through the apex bank amounted to $5.89 billion and $6.09 billion, resulting in a net outflow of US$0.20 billion.
Foreign exchange sales by the CBN to the authorised dealers amounted to $4.31 billion. The average exchange rate of the naira against the dollar at the inter-bank was N209.13 to dollar.
Also, assets and liabilities of the commercial banks stood at N31.23 trillion, at the end of the preceding quarter of 2016, representing an increase of 9.6 per cent over the level at the end of the preceding quarter.
The funds were sourced, mainly from time, savings and foreign currency deposits, foreign liabilities and unclassified liabilities. The funds were used mainly to increase claims on private sector, acquire foreign and unclassified assets.
The CBN’s credit to the commercial banks rose by 34.2 per cent to N1, 041.73 billion. Banks’ specified liquid assets stood at N6.53 trillion, representing 34.9 per cent of their total current liabilities.
The gross external reserves, the report said, stood $26.51 billion, showing a decline of three per cent and 6.5 per cent, compared with the levels in the preceding quarter and the corresponding period of 2015. The development, relative to the preceding quarter, was due to increased sales of foreign exchange at the interbank market.
“A breakdown of the official external reserves showed that CBN reserves stood at $19.44 billion (73.3 per cent), Federation reserves, $2.45 billion (9.3 per cent), and the Federal Government reserves, $4.61 billion,” it said.
Provisional data showed that total non-oil export earnings stood at $576.97million, fell by 43.2 per cent, below the level in the preceding quarter. The development, relative to the preceding quarter, was attributed mainly to the significant decline in receipts from manufactured and food products as well as minerals export.
