Yemisi Izuora
Local industries have accessed over $600 million sold by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) through the interbank foreign exchange market.
Governor,of the CBN, Godwin Emefiele explained that the $660 million sold to manufacturers was in line with its earlier promise to ease the foreign exchange pressure on manufacturing and agricultural businesses through forward sales under the new flexible Foreign Exchange regime.
The money was meant to help them facilitate the procurement of raw materials for agricultural, pharmaceutical, automobile, aviation, plant and machinery, power, telecommunications, and printing, among others.
According to the Acting Director, Corporate Communications Department at the CBN, Isaac Okorafor: “The CBN was committed to ensuring that manufacturers of goods for which Nigeria does not enjoy comparative advantage were able to get letters of credit (LCs) to import the required materials for their businesses.”
Citing the case of some manufacturing industries in Nigeria, which had posted huge turnovers since the CBN introduced restrictions on the sourcing of Forex for 41 items from the inter-bank market, Okorafor said the restriction had indeed yielded positive results.