Macroeconomic Report & Economic Updates
April 4, 2017
Nigeria Economic Update (Issue 11)
Recently released report by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) indicates price increase of selected food items for the month of February 2017, relative to January 2017. Specifically, prices of the selected 24 food items ranged from N47.42 N1, 812 in January to N42.90 N1, 955.10 in February 2017. Average price of all selected items increased month-on-month by 2.7 percent to N540.05. Non-seasonal agriculture factors such as rising cost of crop production, imported products, and transportation continue to drive domestic food prices higher as domestic food supply contracts. This is also reflective of the high food inflation rate in February (18.53 percent) relative to 17.82 percent recorded in January 2017. Strengthening Nigerias crude oil production, supporting local agricultural production, and improving forex policies to straighten the naira remain critical in improving food supply and reducing inflation.
Related
Nigeria Economic Update (Issue 15)
Nigerian
Naira depreciated by 1.2 percent at the parallel foreign exchange market
between April 7, 2017 and April 14, 2017. The naira exchanged at N410/$ as
against N405/$ the previous week. Despite the CBNs weekly dollar
sales to BDCs ($20,000 to each BDC in the review week) and spot market sales of
$100 million to SMEs, the nairas depreciated in the week. This may
likely be attributable to speculative motives (on the basis that speculators
likely anticipate that the CBN forex interventions may not be sustainable).
Nigeria Economic Update (Issue 12)
The naira/dollar exchange rate remained largely stable at the parallel
market at ?320/$ during the period7, albeit slight
fluctuations on February 29, 2016 (?325/$) and March 2, 2016 (?328/$). The
decline in the hoarding of foreign currency as well as the substantial
reduction in the speculative demand for dollars were the two key factors
responsible for the ease of fluctuations in the forex market8. With the slight
increase in the price of crude oil, Nigerias foreign reserve slightly grew by $56 million, from 27.81 billion to $27.84 billion9.
With the continued increase in the price of crude oil, a modest build-up of
foreign reserve to guard against unfavourable commodity price movements is
expected in the near term.