CBN sells more dollars to ease shortages

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) is selling dollars on the interbank market for the fourth day to ease dollar shortages after it floated the cur­rency, traders said.
The Naira traded at N283 to the dollar, on volumes of $76.8 million, which trad­ers attributed to the central bank inter­vention. The interbank market opened at 8am yesterday with no activity for more than three hours.

Nigeria ditched a peg on the Naira to al­low the currency to trade freely on the in­terbank market but traders say dollar li­quidity was tight, leaving the central bank as the main supplier of hard currency.
However, the local currency appreciat­ed at the interbank market on Wednesday, making its first daily rise since the start of the new foreign exchange regime.
On the parallel market also, the Naira firmed to N333 against the dollar in Lagos and N330 in Abuja, from 337 on Tuesday.
The British pound however depreciat­ed below N480, while the Euro remained relatively stable within the range of 380 to 387.
Bureau de change operators have said they have the capacity to crash the rate between the naira and the dollar in the space of a month.