In the nine months leading up to September 2022 (9M’22), the amount of dollars exchanged in the Investors and Exporters (I&E) window of the Nigerian foreign currency (Forex) market increased by 34% Year-on-Year (YoY) to $27.16 billion from $20.25 billion in the same period of 2021 (9M’21).
According to data on forex collected by Vanguard from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), turnover in the first quarter of this year (Q1’22) was $11.9 billion.
The second quarter had a 30 percent quarter-over-quarter (QoQ) fall in turnover to $8.33 billion, and the third quarter saw a further 16 percent decline to N6.93 billion. This is when the volume of transactions started to decline.
This follows the 13.6 per cent Month-on-Month (MoM) decline to $2.02 billion in September from $2.34 billion in August 2022.
Findings from the August transactions data in the window as published by FMDQ showed that turnover stood at $168.22 million in the first two days of September.
In the second week turnover was N348.48 from, and further rose by 19.8 per cent to $417.81 million in the third week.
In the fourth week, turnover rose by 57 per cent to N658.32 before moderating down by 16 percent to N566.13 in the fifth week.
Meanwhile, the naira depreciated by N6.59 kobo during the review period, as the indicative exchange rate of the window rose to N436.03 per dollar on 30th of September from N429.44 per dollar on August 31st .
In a related development, the Naira depreciated by N37 in the parallel market in the month of September.
Financial Vanguard findings from traders in the parallel market showed that Naira depreciated to N735 per dollar on the 30th of September from N698 per dollar a month earlier.
In their H2’2022 macroeconomic outlook, analyst at Cowry Assets Management Plc projected further uncertainty on forex, saying, “The uncertainty surrounding the exchange rate will worsen in the face of less impressive net inflows into foreign reserves”.
