CBN will sustain dollar intervention, Expert says

Mr Ayo Teriba, Chief Executive Officer, Economic Associates, says he is optimistic that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) will be able to sustain its intervention on the foreign exchange (Forex) market.

Teriba told our reporter on Sunday in Abuja that increase in oil production and high oil prices had increased the foreign reserve base of the country.

“We are back to a situation where the Forex at the disposal of the CBN is likely to go up.

“The CBN could not intervene in the Forex market in 2016 because of low oil production, prices and because foreign reserves were also low.

“Today, oil price is up, reserves have also gone up, the outlook of the oil prices is stable and production in Nigeria is going back to capacity; so it has the capacity to intervene.

“In a couple of months, the apex bank should be able to meet all of the demands and all the multiple exchange rates will converge.”

The CBN recently injected 100million dollars into the interbank foreign exchange market as a measure to ease Forex accessibility, thereby crashing demand in the black market.

The measure was also to fund commercial banks with enough Forex to cater for the demand by customers and to meet basic travelling allowance, medicals and tuition fees.