External Reserves Reach $46bn, Reports CBN

The nation’s external reserves hit $46bn on Friday, the Central Bank of Nigeria said this in a statement on Friday.

The CBN said the latest figures obtained on Friday shows that the reserve increased by about $3.2bn between February and March this year.

The reserves at the beginning of 2018 stood at $39.3bn, then rose to $42.8 in February before going up the new high of $46bn.

Confirming the figures, the CBN Acting Director, Corporate Communications Department, Isaac Okorafor, attributed the continued accretion to the country’s reserves to the bank’s effort at vigorously discouraging unnecessary importation and reducing the nation’s import bill; inflow from oil and non-oil exports, as well as the huge inflows through the investors and exporters window of the foreign exchange market, which he said had attracted over $33bn since April 2017, when it was created.

At the close of commodities trading on Friday, March 9, 2018, Brent Crude, sold at $65.49 a barrel up by 2.54 per cent.

According to him, the bank’s interventions in the foreign exchange window have also helped to moderate the pressure on the forex reserves by sustaining liquidity in the market and boosting production and trade.

Okorafor also noted that the CBN policy restricting access to forex from Nigeria’s foreign exchange market to importers of some 41 items had made a huge impact on the status of Nigeria’s reserves and boosted the supply of local substitutes for imported goods, created jobs at home and enhanced the incomes of farmers and local manufacturers.

The external reserves had hit $43.2bn on March 6, data on The CBN website showed.

The foreign exchange reserves had recorded a four-year high at $42.76bn on March 2, after commencing this year at $38.77bn.

The foreign exchange buffer of the CBN has continued to increase recently over steady increase in global oil prices and federal government Eurobond borrowing, among others.

The CBN Governor, Mr. Godwin Emefiele, had projected that the reserves might hit $60bn in 2019, if the trend persisted.

He said increases in the price and shipment of oil, Nigeria’s biggest foreign-currency earner, and improved investor confidence meant the CBN could build its reserves to $60bn over the next 12 to 18 months.