Following recent gains in the country’s currency, the  Naira, Nigeria’s Central Bank (CBN) has claimed that over $1.5bn came into the Nigerian economy over the past few days.

The claim is an indication that the CBN’s monetary policy efforts are beginning to yield results as the Naira continues to strengthen significantly against the US dollar in recent weeks, exchanging for as low as ₦1,200 during the week from a peak of about ₦1,800 per USD.

According to Ali, in the Autonomous Foreign Exchange market, the naira has also been making gains. On Friday, it was trading at N1,309/$1, down from N1,611/$1 in the second week of March 2024.

This information was released in a statement made available on Friday evening by Mrs. Sidi Ali, the acting director of the CBN’s corporate communications department. She pointed out that information the bank had access to suggested the inflows resulted from its deliberate efforts to stabilize the foreign currency market.

Some of the recent monetary policies include harmonising the nation’s currency rate in June last year, which led to the naira depreciating to more than 1,800/$ on the official market. Also earlier in the week on Monday, the CBN convened its 294th MPC meeting, during which it increased the benchmark interest rate by 2% to 24.75%. Before that, in February, it increased the loan rate by 4% to 22.75%.

On Wednesday, the bank also held an auction of N1.64 trillion in Treasury Bills, with stop rates for the 91-day, 182-day, and 364-day tenors of 16.24%, 17%, and 21.124%, respectively.

Ali also gave assurance that the Cardoso-led CBN would continue to be dedicated to maintaining market stability and the proper valuation of the Naira relative to other major currencies globally, even if he acknowledged that Thursday’s rate showed the naira was moving in the correct path.

There were concerns expressed over the decision to raise interest rates. However, the governor of the central bank maintained that the increase would only be temporary and that the goal was to stabilize the economy by bringing interest rates up to pace with the nation’s current inflation rate.

“While the increase in interest rate may have tendencies toward strangulating the economy, with the foreign exchange rate coming down, that also helps to moderate it overall.

“And as I said earlier, you would expect that this would not be too long drawn; at least I would hope so. We are getting towards a situation where the exchange rate is moderating, and we are expecting it to moderate and then it finds a level that, quite frankly, is sustainable. This would involve huge collaboration with the fiscal side because a lot of that cannot just rely on the monetary side alone,” the governor said.