We provide Instant breaking news alerts and information about the day's most talked-about stories around Nigeria, Africa and the world trending news.
Figures obtained from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) have revealed that the country’s external reserves fell by $1.46bn between January and March 2023.
The reserves ended February 27, 2023, at $36.67bn.
According to the figures obtained from the CBN’s data on the movement of external reserves on Sunday, the reserves, which stood at $36.99bn as of the end of January 1, 2023, fell to $35.53bn as of the end of March 30, 2023.
At the last Monetary Policy Committee in Abuja in March, the Governor of the CBN, Godwin Emiefiele attributed the decline in the external reserves to the fall in crude oil prices.
Related Posts
In his words, “The committee, however, noted the marginal decline in the level of gross external reserves to $36.13bn in February 2023, from $36.4bn in January 2023, a decrease of 0.7 per cent, reflecting the downtrend in crude oil prices, as global uncertainties persist.”
The CBN data says Nigeria’s external reserves fell by $3.43bn in 2022, from $40.52bn as of the end of December 31, 2021, to $37.09bn as of the end of December 29, 2022.
The CBN earlier in 2022 introduced a programme called the “RT200 FX Programme” to increase the country’s currency supply through the non-oil industry in the following three to five years.
Emefiele described the RT200 FX Programme as a collection of non-oil export strategies, plans, and programmes that would allow Nigeria to achieve $200 billion in FX repatriation, entirely from non-oil exports, during the following three to five years.
The value-adding exports facility, non-oil commodities expansion facility, non-oil FX rebate scheme, dedicated non-oil export terminal, and biennial non-oil export summit, according to him, are the program’s five main pillars.
