Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has gone to the rescue of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in the country, with the spot sales of $100 million to them to ease their importation of critical and eligible finished and semi-finished goods.
The sales were made today, Tuesday, through the CBN’s newly opened Forex window for small scale importers.
The apex bank also released its results of 7 – 30 days forwards wholesale of $100 million and authorized dealers to subscribe fully to the $100 million offered at the forex auction in the interbank wholesale window yesterday, Monday.
The Acting Director, Corporate Communications at the CBN, Isaac Okorafor, who made these known in a chat with newsmen, said that the new window for SMEs provides small scale importers an avenue to source forex to boost their respective businesses through the importation of eligible finished and semi-finished items.
He said that no SME will be allowed to transact more than $20,000 per quarter, even as sources at the CBN hinted that in an attempt to boost forex supply, the apex bank will soon begin spot forex auction sales and open a special window for investors to trade freely for certain eligible transactions, particularly dividends and investment remittances .
There have been doubts over the ability of the apex bank to sustain the current rate of liquidity in the market. Some experts have, however, pointed out that going by the current level of reserves, the accretion from oil revenues and the subdued level of demand, the CBN has the capacity to sustain supply even if it has to keep doing so for the next three months.
They pointed out that last September, the Bank survived with a reserve level as low as $24bn, reasoning that the gap between that and current levels stands at over $6bn, an amount that can sustain the market for a long time, coupled with ongoing steady accretion from global oil prices. [myad]
