The naira continued its appreciation streak against the dollar, strengthening to N980/$ in the parallel market on Friday.

Aminu Gwadabe, president of the Association of Bureaux De Change Operators of Nigeria (ABCON), made this known in a statement.

Earlier in the day, the naira had appreciated to N1,040 against the dollar at the parallel section of the foreign exchange market. 

He said the naira rebound is the manifestation of measures of dollar liquidity injection and naira mopping through the instrumentality of interest rate hikes.

“It is a good development as it is a great risk to speculate, hoard and substitute naira for other currencies,” he said. 

“However, the speculators are usually interested in the elements of sustainability of the feat so far achieved; it is panic selling as against panic buying.”

Therefore, he said, it is necessary for the management of the apex bank to continue to make clarifications and implement some of the association’s recommendations to include the BDCs in the foreign exchange market.

This, he said, will allow them to play a crucial role in addressing the needs of the critical retail end.

“The BDCs are necessary in the demand measures of the apex bank, transaction monitoring mechanism and clients utilisation with correcting and moderating potentials,” he said. 

“In the area of increasing reserves, this is linked to increased demand of our major export commodity which is crude oil due largely to the US increasing inventories and the escalation of tension in the middle east.”

Furthermore, he warned against attacking the naira as it all appears that the CBN has gotten the arsenal and the logic to continue to enshrine the success recorded.

The Cable