Skip to main content

BOOM: Nigeria’s External Reserves Drops To Lowest In 11 Years

Nigeria’s foreign exchange reserve fell to $25,780,765,483 (25.78 billion) as of August 16, the lowest we have seen since 2005. The drop was down 2.11% from a month ago.
The Nations external reserves dropped below $26 billion for the first time on the 5th of August 2016 after it closed at about $25,971,610,949. In fact, the external reserves has dropped by about $480 million dollars in August alone compared to just $100 million in the whole of July.
Ironically, the current balance of $25.9 billion is worth about 80% more than what it was in Naira following the depreciation of the naira after it was floated.
The CBN has in the past few days ramped up sales of dollars at the interbank in the hope that it will create liquidity in a market that is yawning gape to swallow forex after nearly almost two years of intense rationing by the CBN.
The Naira weakened to its lowest ever at the interbank after it closed at about N362.5/$1 in midday trading. The Naira will eventually close at about N325 according to data from the CBN.
Analysts believe the external reserves could be headed to below $20 dollars by the end of the year if the prediction by the Petroleum Minister, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu ,that Nigeria will produce about 1.5mbp provided bombing continue in the creeks, comes to pass.
Nigeria is thought to require about $7 billion dollars monthly to fund its imports suggesting that the current external reserves can probably last for just about 4 months. Economist believe that a country’s external reserve position should at least be adequate to fund about 6 months of imports. Nigeria’s total import bill was valued at an averaged of about $75 billion annually between 2010 and 2015 or $6.2 billion a month.
Join our BBM channel for instant updates : C0030863D

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Here’s Proof Naira Is Onto Its Longest Gaining Streak In The Parallel Market

It’s official, the Naira is currently on track to ride on its longest running gaining streak against the dollar in the parallel market. From hitting a low of N490 against the dollar the naira has since gained by about N40 to close at N454 on Monday. If it sustains this gain this week,  then we are likely going to witness the longest streak of gain against the dollar in recent times. Analysts had expected the naira to cross the N500 band by October following a downward spiral that coincided with the ban of some commercial banks by the CBN as well as a spike in demand for dollars to meet up school fees for the fall. The liquidity bit so hard it was nearly impossible to buy dollars on the black market for the same price within a space of an hour. However, the naira regained strength after news that Travelex was going to commence operations in Nigeria and has remained strong since it commenced operations about a week ago. According to information from some BDC’s, most

Revealed :How FG, others shared N420bn in September

The News Agency of Nigeria reports that three tiers of government shared N420 billion as revenue for September as against N510.3 billion shared in August. The minister of finance, Mrs Kemi Adeosun through her permanent secretary, Mr Mahmoud Isa-Dutse, said this in Abuja on Thursday, October 20, at the monthly revenue allocation to federal, states and local governments. She said the revenue allocation to federal, states and local government for September dropped by N90.2 billion. Adeosun credited the drop to the loss of 45.5 million dollars in federation export sales, despite the increase in average price of crude oil from 46.06 dollars per barrel in May to 48.4 dollars in June. Read more: https://www.naij.com/1017608-revealed-fg-others-shared-n420bn.html The News Agency of Nigeria reports that three tiers of government shared N420 billion as revenue for September as against N510.3 billion shared in August. The minister of finance, Mrs Kemi Adeosun through her permanent se

Are Gencos generating more debt than power?

The Nigerian electricity industry has been under a lot of pressure. Gas supply is low and power generation has been severely affected. More worrying is that they are owned hundreds of billions of naira in debts by its customers. N93 billion of that debt is owed by Ministries and Department of Government (MDA’s). That debt cascades down the value chain of the power sector with most of it owed to power generating companies. The power sector value chain is such that power is generated by the Gencos and sold to the Marker Operators (MO), who then wheel the power  through the grid (run by transmission Company) to the Discos and then to consumers. A reverse flow starts when the customers pay their bills to the Discos and then the Discos pay the Market Operators (MO) who then pay the Gencos and then the Gencos pay the gas suppliers. For the Gencos, the above schematic is now more on paper than in reality. They hardly get enough gas to generate electricity and even when gas is