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The Central Bank will try to eliminate the currency black market, where the naira trades about 40 percent below the official rate against the dollar, Nigeria’s finance minister said on Tuesday.
Nigeria, dependent on oil exports, is in its first recession in 25 years as low global crude prices take their toll, Reuters reported
The CBN scrapped a 16-month-old peg of 197 naira to the dollar in June, but it continues to trade in the official market, so that the naira remains far stronger against the dollar there than on the parallel market.
The government has blamed that black market for damaging the already shaky economy.
The CBN “has been directed to do this and the apex bank has promised to do something by putting a system in place to eliminate the black market because it is damaging the economy, Kemi Adeosun told a conference.
A CBN spokesman, Isaac Okorafor, said the apex bank was working towards “ensuring that the forex market operates as effectively as we would envisage.”
He said the aim was to “ensure there is no black market” but did not give details of how this would be achieved.
