Nigeria’s external reserves increased to $35.05 billion on July 8, 2024, making it the highest since May 30, 2023.
Gatekeepers News reports that data from Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) showed that the foreign reserves rose by $280 million from $34.77 billion on July 5.
It was observed that the country’s foreign reserves recorded steady increases in July, reaching the highest so far this year.
The foreign reserves rose from $34.34 billion to $34.43 billion, 34.55 billion, and $34.66 billion from July 1 to 4, respectively.
This is also the first time Nigeria’s external reserves would reach such levels since May 30, 2023 (at $35.09 billion), a day after the present administration took office.
Since President Tinubu assumed office, federal government, through CBN, has introduced several policies to improve foreign exchange (FX) market and strengthen the naira.
One of the latest interventions is CBN’s issuance of a directive to banks to transfer all excess foreign currency notes to its Lagos or Abuja branches.
CBN said, “In order to deepen the foreign exchange market, boost liquidity and attain convergence in the exchange rates of the parallel and official markets, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has approved that DMBs may deposit their excess foreign currency notes with Lagos and Abuja branches of the Bank.”
“The approval is a response to the increasing demand by DMBs to deposit their forex cash with CBN for onward credit to their off-shore accounts with the correspondent banks.”
CBN Governor, Olayemi Cardosa, on June 25, said the apex bank is relatively pleased with the progress it has made in stabilising naira.
However, despite positive movement in foreign reserves, naira weakened at close of Wednesday, trading at N1,561 against dollar in the official window.
