by Jewel Stephen
Trading on the interbank market was temporarily suspended on Wednesday as the Naira continued it’s downward trend against the dollar. The Naira is reported to have dropped to N205 to a dollar, forcing market operators to engage a circuit breaker and allow the market cool off.
As at the point of filing in this report, our correspondent was told that traders were locked in an emergency meeting with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to seek a way forward.
Our correspondent also learnt that the markets may re-open after a few hours.
The Naira had been on a downward trend recently on thin dollar liquidity, but the drop became reinforced following news of postponement of the countries general elections, slated for February 14, 2015.
The naira was quoted at a record low of 200.10 to the dollar by market open and quickly fell to N204.04 within 2 hours. In the bureau de change, the quote at 11am today was N212, two naira more than the N210 it traded on Friday.
The communications adviser to the CBN governor, who described the drop in the Naira’s interbank value as a speculative attack, speaking to our correspondent said that the Naira was stable and advised anyone seeking legitimate use of the dollar to apply via the RDAS auction.
More to follow…
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