CBN Has Revealed Plan To End The Sale Of Foreign Currency To Banks By The End Of This Year.

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has stated that it will cease selling foreign currency to banks by the end of the year.

CBN Governor Godwin Emefiele made the announcement at a press conference following the Banker’s Committee meeting on Thursday, February 10, in Abuja, following the launch of the apex bank’s new forex repatriation scheme, RT200.

Banks, according to the CBN Governor, must start sourcing their forex from export proceeds.

Emefiele stated:

“The era is coming to an end when, because your customers need 100million dollars in foreign exchange or 200 million dollars, you now want to pack all the dollars 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 rebait. 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 consistent with the CBN’s new commitment to increase the country’s foreign reserves through non-oil export proceeds.

He continued:

“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.”