The Nigerian currency, the Naira, continued its downward trend yesterday, depreciating to N1,625.13 against the U.S. dollar in the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEM).
This marks a significant drop from the previous rate of N1,561.76 per dollar recorded just a day earlier, reflecting a sharp decline of N63.37.
Data from the FMDQ, a platform that tracks financial markets in Nigeria, showed that the decline in the Naira’s value in the official market was accompanied by a decrease in trading volume.
The total amount of U.S. dollars traded in the official forex market fell by 32.7%, from $253.68 million on Tuesday to $170.6 million yesterday. This drop in trading volume further highlights the growing challenges in stabilizing the currency.
While the Naira suffered a setback in the official market, there was a slight improvement in its performance on the parallel market, where it appreciated to N1,675 per dollar, an improvement from N1,685 per dollar recorded on Tuesday.
The narrowing gap between the official NAFEM rate and the parallel market rate is also notable. As of yesterday, the difference between the two rates had decreased to N49.87 per dollar, down from N123.24 per dollar the previous day.
