Naira Heads Towards 500/Dollar

Nigeria’s foreign exchange market was tension-soaked yesterday, as the Naira raced towards N500/USD1. It closed at N490/ USD1 in the parallel market, with dealers expecting further rise today to hit the dreaded N500 mark.

Surprisingly, the Naira appreciated significantly to N305/ USD at the official interbank market same day, although dealers said foreign exchange was not available to most of the bids.

Meanwhile, the global investment bank, Morgan Stanley of United States of America, has warned that its MSCI Nigeria Indexes would be reclassified as Stand-alone next year, if currency restriction was instituted by the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN. Also the World Bank said, yesterday, that Nigeria and South Africa would drag down Africa’s growth rate by 1.6 per cent in 2016, as strings of negative economic indicators continued.