The Minister of Finance and Economic Coordination, Mr. Wale Edun, has said roughly $10 billion in forex inflows are expected within weeks rather than months.
According to The Times, Edun said this during a panel discussion at the Nigeria Economic Summit, where he also responded to inquiries about stabilizing the foreign exchange market and securing market liquidity.
Additionally, he added, “There is a line of sight for $10 billion worth of foreign exchange in the relatively near future, in weeks as opposed to months, due to the supply of foreign exchange through NNPC, increased production, decreased expenditure, from transactions like forward sales, from our discussions with sovereign wealth funds, that are ready to invest and provide advanced alongside that investment.”
The minister added that President Tinubu has signed two executive orders intended to ensure currency market liquidity.
He said, “Mr. President announced that he had taken measures to ease illiquidity in the forex market, which we know is very problematic at this time.”
“There is a lack of supply, which has a number of causes, and as a result, the market is illiquid and not operating as it should.”
He said that the President has put forward an executive order that effectively permits under forbearance all the cash that is in the domestic economy to enter the formal money supply.
“There is also another presidential order that permits domestic issuance of foreign currency instruments in order to give people an incentive to supply foreign money from any source.”
The value of the naira has plunged by more than 100% on the black market since the unification of the foreign currency market in June.
Despite numerous initiatives taken by the present CBN management to increase liquidity, the chasm between the rates on the I&E window and the parallel market keeps growing.
