The naira at the official market however closed flat at ₦461.07/USD.
According to data from the FMDQ, the naira hit an intra-day trading high of N467 and a low of N460 on Wednesday but closed trading at ₦463.02 per US dollar.
On Thursday, traders said that the Nigerian naira hit a record low of 466 per dollar on the official market after the Central Bank of Nigeria weakened the currency on the spot market and at its foreign exchange auction in a bid to address a backlog of demand for foreign currency, reports Reuters.
The traders claimed that the CBN adjusted rates on Wednesday to N465 from 460 naira per dollar, while it sold hard currency to businesses for raw materials and other imports at N630 at its last auction on Friday.
The forex situation in Nigeria has been a constant source of grief for players in the economy, who have lamented its impact on their operations such as the importation of raw materials and others.
Recall that in April, the World Bank in its latest Macro Poverty Outlook for Nigeria advised the Federal Government to unify the nation’s multiple exchange rate windows and carry out some other reforms to strengthen the economy and restore macroeconomic stability.
It partly read, “Macroeconomic stability has weakened amidst declining oil production, costly fuel subsidies, exchange rate distortions, and monetization of the fiscal deficit.
“The authorities can strengthen the economy by restoring macroeconomic stability through reforms to increase oil and non-oil revenues, tighten monetary policies to reduce inflation and unify the multiple FX windows and adopt a single, market-responsive exchange rate.”
At the third ‘Race to US$ 200bn In FX Repatriation’ Non-oil export summit of the CBN, the governor, Godwin Emefiele, said exporters of raw and unprocessed items will now enjoy a rebate for every dollar of non-oil export proceeds sold at the I&E window.
“We initially decided that we would only pay a rebate for value-added products to encourage exporters to move from just exporting crude items. We wanted to create an opportunity to encourage you to set up an arrangement that processes these raw materials and creates job opportunities for our people rather than just exporting raw materials,” he said.
However, the CBN boss said the rebate for raw materials would not be at the same rate for semi-finished and processed products.
“We should be able to give out about N30 to N35 to one dollar for unprocessed items as against the rebate of N65 to every dollar enjoyed by exporters of processed products at the importers and exporters (I&E) window,” he said.
