Nigerian naira fell further to N1,482.57 against the US dollar at the official window, which is also known as the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEM), on Tuesday.
Gatekeepers News reports that the official window rate surpassed the value of the parallel market quoted at N1,470 at the close of the market on Tuesday, which is the second time in nine years.
The naira extended its decline by 9.93 percent from the N1,348.63/$ reported on Monday. The dollar was traded as high as N1,531 and as low as N789 before closing at N1,482.57.
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) announced that it has concluded the payment of all verified foreign exchange (FX) claims by airlines with an additional $64.44 million disbursed to the concerned international aviation firms.
This followed the disbursement of $61.64 million to foreign airlines through various commercial banks as revealed by the CBN on January 7, 2024.
The CBN’s Acting Director of Corporate Communications, Hakama Sidi-Ali, said that the latest amount paid to the airlines brought the total verified sum disbursed to the sector to $136.73 million.
She stressed that all the verified airline claims have now been cleared and that Olayemi Cardoso, the CBN Governor, and his team are committed to ensuring that the verified backlog of payments across all other sectors is cleared and confidence is restored in the Nigerian FX market.
Meanwhile, the apex bank on January 29, 2024, released $500 million to various sectors to address the backlog of FX transactions.
