Official And Black Market Exchange Rates Gap Closes as Naira Sets New Record

Official And Black Market Exchange Rates Gap Closes as Naira Sets New Record

  • The naira plunged to its lowest on Friday, November 8, 2023, at the official market
  • The latest depreciation of Nigeria’s currency has closed the gap between the parallel and official market by N99 to a dollar
  • The development follows the plan of the Nigerian government to achieve unified FX rates by the end of this year

Pascal Oparada has over a decade of experience covering Tech, Energy, Stocks, Investments, and Economy.

The exchange rate gap or disparity between the official and parallel market closed to N99 per dollar as the naira depreciated to the lowest in history at N1,099.05 per dollar at the Nigeria Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEM) on Friday, November 8, 2023.

The black market traded at N1,198 per dollar on Friday, November 8, 2023.

Naira, black market, Official market
The official and black market gap closes as the naira falls to the lowest Credit: Bloomberg/Contributor
Source: Getty Images

Black and official markets close disparity

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Naira gains over N100 against the dollar in the official market as FX inflows hits $11bn

With the current rates, the disparity between the two markets has closed by over 100% to N99 compared to N1.83 per dollar that existed as of June 21, 2023, after the unification of the rate windows by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

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The spot trading rate also closed further between the official and black markets to N22 per dollar from N1,176 as of December 7, 2023, while the parallel market was N1,198 per dollar as of December 8, 2023.

CBN collapses FX windows as FG targets new rates

The apex banks collapsed all segments of the Forex markets on June 14, 2023, into the NAFEM, formerly the Investors’ and Exporters’ window.

CBN disclosed that all eligible transactions in the market should only be done through the NAFEM, thereby closing all other windows.

Read also

“No More N783/$:” Again, Nigeria Customs announces new exchange rate for cargo clearance

BusinessDay reports that the new window functions by a willing buyer and a willing seller model.

The Nigerian government said it targets an exchange rate of N650 and N750 per dollar by this year’s end.

Naira gains over N100 against the dollar in the official market as FX inflows hit $11bn

Legit.ng reported that the Naira returned against the US dollar in the official Nigeria Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEM) on Thursday, November 7, 2023.

The recovery of the Nigerian currency came after depreciating for two consecutive days, hitting a new low of N952.13 against the US dollar on Wednesday, November 6, 2023.

However, the Naira recorded a slight drop against the US greenback in the parallel market, exchanging at N160 per dollar as against the N157 traded the day before.

Source: Legit.ng

Authors:
Pascal Oparada avatar

Pascal Oparada (Business editor) For over a decade, Pascal Oparada has reported on tech, energy, stocks, investment, and the economy. He has worked in many media organizations such as Daily Independent, TheNiche newspaper, and the Nigerian Xpress. He is a 2018 PwC Media Excellence Award winner. Email:pascal.oparada@corp.legit.ng