External Reserve Increases Marginally, Naira Depreciates Further Against Dollar to 1,515/$

The Naira decline persisted on Monday, with further depreciation in the parallel market to 1,515 to a dollar.

This represents a 2.97 percent (N45/$1) depreciation when compared to the exchange rate of N1,470 on Friday.

The decline occurred despite Nigeria’s external reserves increasing marginally by 0.4 percent week on week to a four-week high of $32.4 billion as of May 8, 2024, BusinessDay reports.

In a bid to intervene in the retail segment of the forex market, the CBN in February resumed dollar sales to BDCs. Since then the apex bank has held three editions of the dollar.

At the last edition, the CBN offered to sell $10,000 per BDCs at directing them to sell at the maximum margin of 1.5 per cent.

BDC operators however complained dollar disbursement from CBN is too slow that and takes three to four weeks between when they make payment and when the dollars are disbursed to them.