Naira dips by 0.7% at parallel market

The Naira on Wednesday continued to depreciate at the parallel market amid mixed reactions to the recent forex policy of the Central Bank of Nigeria.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the Nigerian currency lost N2 to exchange at N297 to the dollar, from N295 it traded on Tuesday.
It, however, traded at N197 to the dollar at the official interbank window.
Traders at the market said the demand for the greenback by importers had continued to fuel the depreciation of the Naira at the market.
Meanwhile, some stakeholders at the forex market have expressed divergent views on the impact of the recent forex policy of the apex bank on the fate of the Naira.
The Association of Bureaux de Change Operators of Nigeria in a communiqué urged the CBN to reverse the ban of sale of forex to its members, adding that the ban would impact the value of the Naira negatively.
They called on the CBN to include them in taking decisions that would affect the foreign exchange market.
Prof. Sherifadeen Tella of the Department of Economics, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago Iwoye, Ogun State, said the new forex policy of the apex bank was in the right direction.
Tella noted that there was nowhere in the world that the central bank sold forex to BDCs, pointing out that BDCs in Nigeria were operating like the parallel market.
NAN.