By Chris Ndibe
With demand of $1.16 billion yearly, manufacturers have warned that many factories may shut down if the one year foreign currency supply promise by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) is not met.
Some of the producers lamented that locally sourced materials were being indexed and priced at the same rates for which they would have been imported, thus stalling backward integration agenda.
Data from manufacturers’ union showed steady decline in backward integration activities since 2017 until H2 2019 due to local pricing and availability of raw materials.
Already, the CBN, few days ago, altered the official exchange rate at which it sells the naira to the dollar on its website to N379/$1 from the N361 per dollar that the website had reflected since March 20, this year.
The CBN had, on July 3, adjusted the naira rate from N360/$1 to N380/$1 at the Secondary Market Intervention Sales (SMIS). Similarly, on July 7, the regulator adjusted the exchange rate at the Investors and Exporters’ (I&E) window, also known as NAFEX, according to data on FMDQ website, by 5.54 per cent to N381 per dollar from N361/$, sparking speculations that it was set to officially unify the exchange rates.
However, it left the exchange rate unchanged at N361/$1 on its website. In the wake of acute forex scarcity, occasioned by low oil prices, the naira has come under pressure on the parallel market and the I&E window where it trades for about N475 per dollar and N386 per dollar respectively.
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