The Naira continued to depreciate in the review week. At the parallel market, naira exchanged for N498/$ on January 27, 2017 and N500/$ on February 3, 2017. Despite the weekly sales of forex to BDCs and the significant improvements in the external reserves, the naira has continued to lose value to other currencies. The pressure on the naira has been triggered by escalating scarcity of forex in the spot market, likely due to forex hoarding. However, in the preceding week, the CBN sold $660 million in forwards contract in an attempt to manage liquidity and stabilize the naira. In the face of growing speculation in the parallel market, the monetary authority should institute mechanisms that would discourage excessive forex hoarding among licensed BDC operators. An initiative that monitors transaction dealings in the parallel market would go a long way in detecting erring BDC operators.

There is a link between primary commodity export prices and economic performance. Many African economies are primary commodities export biased, often in few primary commodities. Previous studies focus on the impact of commodity prices on growth in Africa with little attention paid to different primary commodities and level of diversification in primary commodities export. This study, investigates the effect of primary commodity prices on the long-run growth of 24 primary commodities-based African economies; by commodity types and level of diversification in primary commodities exports.