The Central Bank of Nigeria has
introduced “Form X” for the Small and Medium-scale Enterprises seeking
to purchase foreign exchange from the apex bank.
The CBN said the decision was part of
its commitment to increase forex liquidity and improve access by the
SMEs and retail businesses to forex.
Mr. Isaac Okorafor, the Acting Director, Corporate
Communications, CBN, who confirmed this on Monday,
said that the measure was intended to ease documentation challenges
usually encountered by this category of businesses.
Okorafor explained that the new form,
which must be completed by all the SME applicants required the applicant
to fill the form with a supporting application letter as well as
beneficiary invoice and bank wire transfer.
The objective of the new guideline, he
added, was to remove obstacles usually encountered by those whose forex
needs for either visibles or invisibles were as small as or less than
$10,000.
He reiterated the apex bank’s
determination to continue to ensure adequate supply of forex for genuine
transactions in the coming days.
The introduction of the ‘’Form X” was coming barely one week after the CBN opened a special forex window for the SMEs.
Meanwhile, the naira closed at 410/dollar on the parallel market on Monday, the last day of the Easter holidays.
Despite the series of dollar supplies
into the various segments of the forex market by the central bank, the
naira had closed at 410 against the United States dollar from Friday to
Sunday, fuelling concerns about the CBN dollar interventions.
Earlier, the local unit had also closed at 410/dollar consecutively from last Tuesday to last Thursday.
Deposit Money Banks lacked naira liquidity to bid for the $100m offered for sale by the CBN last Thursday.
Banks were unable to buy over $39m out of the $100m offered for bid by the apex bank.
The CBN is reportedly planning to raise
dollar sales to the BDCs to $40,000 from the present $20,000, which will
improve liquidity and help support the local currency.
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