Macroeconomic Report & Economic Updates
December 29, 2017
Nigeria Economic Update (Issue 49)
OPEC weekly basket price reduced from $61.14 to $60.73 per barrel (December 1 8, 2017). Similarly, Global oil benchmark crude sold for as low as $61.22 per barrel during the week, down week-on-week by 1.8 percent. Nigerias Bonny light declined slightly by approximately 1 percent to $63.534. The fall in crude prices came after a sharp rise in U.S. inventories of refined fuel, which suggested that actual demand may be weakening5 (the EIA data shows an increase of 8.5 million barrels of stored fuel). Given that crude oil revenue remains critical to Nigerias budget performance, investments aimed at improving growth and competitiveness of other key sectors is essential to minimize distortions on budgetary expenditure.
Related
External Reserve
External Reserve: External reserve picked up from its year-2000 level below $10,000 million to above $60,000 million in 2008. However, the external reserve fell deeply in 2010/11 and even further in 2
Nigeria Economic Update (Issue 7)
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.