Naira improves against dollar and pounds on parallel market

The Nigerian Naira on Thursday, March 9, improved against the US Dollar and Pound Sterling at the parallel market but crashed against the Euro.

According to reports,Naira appreciated to N462 per US dollar as against the N465 rate it was on Wednesday, March 8.

The Naira also appreciated to N550 against the Pound from the previous rate of N560.

However, the local currency crashed to N477 per Euro as against the previous rate of N475.

At the official market, the currency remained pegged at 305.80 to the dollar.

An economist, Mr Harrison Owoh, has attributed the instability in the exchange rate in spite of liquidity boost in the FOREX market to excessive demand for dollars.

Owoh said that the injection of 1.14 billion dollars by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to the interbank market were majorly at the service of letters of credits and invisibles.

According to him, it is the cash at hand that brings down the exchange rate not mere letters of credit.

It has been gathered that a market-driven exchange rate regime is in the works, going by the federal government’s economic plan released on Tuesday, March 7.

There has been pressure that the Naira should be allowed to float, its worth dictated by market forces.

This, argue some experts, will attract investors. But the government insists that no country surrenders totally its currency to market forces, adding that it will intervene when necessary. It may have changed its mind.