CBN Defends Naira With $4.9bn

Because of numerous attempts by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to stabilise the naira the nation’s external reserves were depleted by $4.9bn in the first quarter of 2015.
The estimates show that the reserves fell by 14.3 % down from $34.24bn at the end of December 2014 to $29.36bn at the end of March 2015.
The CBN announced that the reserves for March 2015 dropped by $8bn when compared to what it was at the end of March 2014.

The organization said: “The stock of external reserves at end-March 2015 stood at $29.36bn as against $34.24bn and $37.4bn recorded at end-December 2014 and end-March 2014, indicating respective depletion of $4.9bn or 14.3 % and $8bn or 21.5 %. The depletion was mainly due to the funding of the rDAS window and intervention at the interbank market to stabilise the naira exchange rate. The current level of external reserves, which is equivalent to 7.1 months of import commitment, could also finance 6.8 months of foreign exchange disbursements and 5.2 months of imports of goods and services.
The bank also noted that the share of the CBN portion maintained the lead at $24.99bn (85.1 %) of the total, while the portion of the federation reserves and the federal government reserves stood at $2.26bn (7.7 %) and $2.10bn (7.2 %), respectively. On the major uses of foreign exchange, CBN explained that in the first quarter of 2015, a total of $14.17bn was utilised for visible and invisible trade as against $17.45bn and $18.13bn in the preceding and corresponding quarters in 2014, respectively. Out of the total amount utilised, visible imports at $8.43bn accounted for 59.5 % of the total, while invisible imports valued at $5.74bn accounted for the balance,” it stated.