Naira Recovering Fast; sells for 385/$1, first time in months

The value of the Naira continued to improve against the dollar as the local currency was traded at N385 to the greenback on Thursday evening in Abuja.

Naira had also appreciated against the Euro, exchanging at N400 while remaining stable against the Pound Sterling at N465.

The last time the naira traded at between N390 and N400 to the dollar at the parallel market was in August 2016.

On Wednesday, when the dollar first traded for N400, it marked the beginning of true convergence of official and black market foreign exchange rates.

A Bureau de Change (BDC) operator, who preferred anonymity in Abuja, told NAN that the gains made by naira over the dollar were due to CBN’s continued flooding of the market with dollars while there were very few or no customers to patronise them.

He said retail customers who used to resort to BDCs, which indirectly funded the parallel market, to fund invisible transactions now bought dollars at a lower rate from the banks, a policy that was started when Vice President Yemi Osinbajo was in-charge as Acting President.