Fakoyejo OlalekanThe Dollar rate in the Investors and Exporters (I&E) window of the official market closed down at N461.25 on Wednesday, 8 March 2023.
According to data from FMDQ Securities, the exchange rate between the Dollar and the Naira closed below the previous day’s N461.50/$1.
The Dollar rate depreciated by -0.05 per cent or N0.25 kobo when the closing rate of Tuesday, 7 March 2023, is compared to the exchange rate reported for Wednesday’s trading activities.
Prior to the closing rate of N461.25 kobo/$1, the exchange rate between the Naira and the Dollar hit a high of N462.50 kobo on Wednesday. On the same day, the Dollar traded at a low of N446.
During trading, the FMDQ data showed investors or traders exchanged $115.58 million worth of foreign exchange in the official market.
The official market, which has the backing of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), recorded a 29.96 per cent drop in the value of foreign exchange trading on Wednesday.
It was $49.43 million lower than the $165.01 million the investors and traders exchanged in the window during Tuesday’s trading activities.
Meanwhile, the exchange rate movement in the official market has been sluggish or rather, stable, in the first quarter of 2023, having closed last year at N461.50/$1.
This means year-to-date, the exchange rate between the Naira and the Dollar has decreased slightly by 0.05 per cent, but projections by several rating companies have estimated a higher exchange rate later in 2023.
One of them includes the credit rating agency, Agusto & Co, which states that the Naira will weaken this year to N480-N500/$1.
Agusto had stated that the exchange rate will be impacted after the February presidential election, not before, “While the naira will come under increasing pressure due to limited government external borrowing, devaluation is unlikely to happen until after the February 2023 presidential election,” it said in a report titled ‘2023 Outlook: Nigeria, a Nation on the Precipice’.
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