Naira to Suffer More As Dollar Demand Continue to Increase

All is not well with our currency! The naira will weaken further at the parallel market after shedding as much as 9 percent of its value last week, foreign exchange dealers and economic experts have said.

Last week, the local currency fell from 310 to 338 as acute shortage of the greenback lingered.

Forex dealers and experts have indicated that they expect the Naira to fall further at the parallel market this week as demand for the greenback continues to soar.

“The situation has got to the point of hysteria now; everybody wants to hold dollars. 

So the demand is rising and piling up,” the Chief Executive Officer, Cowry Asset Management Limited, Mr. Johnson Chukwu, said.

CBN has left the official exchange rate unchanged at N197 to the dollar on its official interbank window.

But the local currency hit a record low of 338 to the dollar on Thursday as desperate importers scrambled for dollars to meet their obligations overseas.

“We see the naira falling further in coming days if the central bank fails to lift the dollar restriction,” the Ag. President, Association of Bureau De Change Operators, Aminu Gwadabe, said.

Tumbling global oil prices have battered Nigeria’s oil-dependent economy, with external reserves down to an 11-year low at $27.89bn on February 9.

But the situation is dicey. President Muhammadu Buhari is concerned that further depreciation will hurt poor Nigerians, but the CBN’s inability to come up with a better strategy has widened a chasm between official rate and the parallel market.