On the official Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market, the naira plummeted to a fresh all-time low of N1,534/$ on Monday.
The national currency closed last Friday at N1,476.13/$, a loss of 3.93 percent, or N58, according to FMDQ Exchange, a portal that reports on the nation’s official foreign exchange trading.
The official exchange rate on Monday became the worst since the Central Bank of Nigeria floated the country’s currency in June 2023. On Monday, the naira fluctuated in value between N1,480 and N1,490 on the parallel market.
The local currency seems to have been trading more favorably on the black market lately, particularly after the FMDQ reexamined the process by which it determines the official exchange rate.
The naira depreciated from over 900 to over 1,400 dollars due to a change in the methodology used to calculate the official exchange rate. The naira closed above the N1000/$ mark on the official window at some point in December. The naira initially saw an all-time low of N1,099.05/$ on December 8.
It closed at N1043.09/$ on December 28, 2023, and N1035.12/$ on January 3, 2024. It closed at N1089.51/$ on January 9, 2024, and N1082.32/$ on January 10, 2024. Additionally, on January 30, 2024, it reached an all-time low of N1348.63/$ after the FMDQ reexamined the process it used to determine the official exchange rate.
On Monday, the first trading day following the CBN’s instruction for banks to sell extra dollars in the official FX market, dollar sales by banks peaked at $584.53 million, but on Friday they fell by 56.58 percent to $253.77 million.
In one week, commercial banks sold $1.97 billion in total.