External reserve dropped slightly by 0.6 per cent from $28.35 billion in January 22 to $28.19 billion in January 295. Considering the continuous decline, government has stepped up efforts towards financing the deficit in the proposed budget through borrowing. At the forex market, the official exchange rate remained unchanged at N197/$ while the naira depreciated at the parallel market by 2.36 percent from N297/$ to N304/$ between January 22 and 296. Despite the huge spread between the official and parallel market exchange rates, the monetary authorities maintained its fixed exchange rate regime at the official forex market. It is expected that if the demand pressure for dollar persists, the value of naira may decline in the near term.

The Naira maintained slight appreciation against the dollar in the review week. At the parallel market, the value of the Naira appreciated week-on-week by 1.6 percent to exchange at N380/$ on May 19, 2017. In addition, inter-bank market rate appreciated slightly by 15kobo to N305.45/$. The appreciation in both segments of the market are favorable effects of the CBNs continued forex supply in the week under review (In a bid to further ease forex liquidity, the CBN pumped a total of $457.3 million on May 15, 2017).