CBN to eliminate forex black market

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The Central Bank of Nigeria will move to eliminate the foreign exchange black market in Africa’s biggest economy, the country’s finance minister said on Tuesday.

The naira trades, sometimes 40% below the official rates, against the dollar. Adeosun said the CBN has been mandated to scrap the damaging market.

The central bank (CBN) “has been directed to do this and CBN has promised to do something by putting a system in place to eliminate the black market because it’s damaging the economy”, Adeosun told a conference.

A CBN spokesman, Isaac Okorafor, said the central bank was working towards “ensuring that the forex market operates as effectively as we would envisage”.

He said the aim was to “ensure there is no black market” but did not give details of how this would be achieved.

Nigeria had pegged the naira to the dollar at 197-199 since March 2015 but the CBN scrapped the 16-month-old peg in June in favour of currency free float. But that has done little to change naira’s fortune.