December 6,2022

Nigeria’s currency, the Naira, has kicked off the new week very strong against the US dollar amid an unexpected drop in forex demand.

Traders at the black market on Monday exchanged the US dollar at N721.

This represented a N15 naira gain when compared to N736 it sold on Friday last week.

The current rate in the last month after the naira had recovered 22.08 per cent of its lost value compared to N890 per dollar it sold in the same period last month (November).

It was a flat trading day at the Investor and Exporters (I&E) forex window, the official window.

Data from FMDQ securities showed that Naira closed at

N445.33 on Monday, the same rate as Friday last week.

This happened as forex demand in the market dropped significantly to just $60.06 million.

Meanwhile, Nigeria’s external reserves dropped for the fourth consecutive month by 0.7 per cent to $37.1 billion as of November 29, 2022, due to higher foreign exchange obligations, according to a report by Afrinvest Securities Limited.

According to the monthly report, the activity level in the I&E Window improved as total turnover rose 37.8 per cent m/m to $2.0 billion.

For December, we expect the rate at the I&E window to weaken further on the back of supply-demand imbalance in the FX market,” analysts at Afrinvest said.