Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy has taken steps to liberalize foreign exchange trading on Wednesday.
Reuters reports this move capped a dramatic day that saw the official Naira rate devalued by more than a third.
In a statement issued after the end of the trading day in New York, the Central Bank said all FX trading would now take place at what is known as its Investors and Exporters (I&E) window and re-introduced the “willing buyer, willing seller” model.
The operational rate for all government-related FX transactions will be the weighted average of the preceding day’s executed trades, while order-based, two-way quotes cleared by a central counter-party will be re-introduced.
Nigeria’s dollar-denominated sovereign bonds extended the session’s sharp gains after the FX rules announcement, with an issuance maturing in 2033 up 2.4 cents to 78.625 cents, the highest in nearly five months.
