The Association of Bureau De Change Operators of Nigeria (ABCON) has lauded the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for selling $197.71 million to banks.
On April 5, the CBN announced the aforementioned sale as part of its commitment to ensuring adequate liquidity and supporting orderly foreign exchange market functioning.
The move followed the recent negative adjustments in global stock markets, triggered by President Donald Trump’s announcement of sweeping global tariffs on all imports into the country, with Nigeria getting 14 percent.
In an interview with NAN on Monday, Aminu Gwadabe, president of ABCON, said the tariff hike would make Nigerian products more expensive and less attractive to America.
Gwadabe warned that the tariff hike would lead to reduced exports and substantial revenue losses for the nation’s economy while also causing further depreciation of the naira in the official market.
“As we speak now, the naira is weaker in the official market than in the parallel markets,” he stated.
“It is, therefore, important for the CBN to be proactive and ensure the sustainability of stability in the market.”
Gwadabe asked the CBN to inject liquidity into the interbank market and the critical retail end to meet the demand for invisible transactions and small and medium-sized enterprises.
The ABCON boss emphasised that concerted efforts are needed to diversify the nation’s foreign exchange (FX) sources, as the challenge is fundamentally about liquidity.
“To this end, Nigeria, being a mono-cultural economy that relies heavily on petro-dollar receipts, should embrace more partners like India, African markets, and China in the export of its single and most important commodity,” the president said.
“The CBN should enforce banks to implement the sale of their interbank proceeds to the BDCs to curtail any volatility.
“There is a need to support local production of export commodities to mitigate our reliance on oil.”
Gwadabe described the Trump administration’s trade tariff as “global tension raging like wildfire across jurisdictions”.
He commended the CBN’s consistent intervention in the FX market, addressing inflation, uncertainty, and FX volatility during a challenging period of policy reforms.
