The Central Bank of Nigeria has announced that it would stop selling foreign currency (forex) – US dollar, euro, pound sterling, among others – to banks by the end of the year.
CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele made the announcement at a briefing during the launch of the apex bank’s new forex repatriation scheme, RT200, held after the Banker’s Committee meeting on Thursday February 10, in Abuja.
According to the CBN Governor, banks must begin to source their forex from export proceeds.
Emefiele said: “The era is coming to an end when, because your customers need 100 million dollars in foreign exchange or 200 million dollars, you now want to pack all the (Naira) and pass it to CBN to give you dollars.
“It is coming to an end before or by the end of this year. We will tell them don’t come to the Central Bank for foreign exchange again go and generate your export proceeds.
“When those export proceeds come, we will fund them at 5% for you and they will earn rebate. Then you can sell those proceeds to your customers that want 100 million dollars. But to say you will continue to come to the Central Bank to give you dollars, we will stop it.”
Emefiele maintained that the decision is in line with the CBN’s new commitment to boost the country’s foreign reserves through proceeds from non-oil exports.
He added: “Nigeria cannot continue to depend on FX earnings to fund its import obligations from revenue coming from earnings from products where we cannot determine both price and quantity.”
