CBN explains how External Reserves rose

The Central Bank of Nigeria’s CBN spokesman, Issac Okoroafor explained how the Apex bank managed the nations economy to attain the N40Billion mark.
Citing the CBN policy restricting access to Foreign Exchange,forex, by importers of some 41 items as the major turning point, Okorafor said the policy had helped to stop the haemorrhaging of the country’s external reserves, which had witnessed heavy depletion due to huge import bills and other debt obligations.
According to him, the CBN policy has ensured a decline in Nigeria’s import bills from over $5bn monthly in 2015 to about $1.5bn in 2017.
He expressed optimism that with the determination of the regulator and the cooperation of the fiscal authorities, the external reserves would continue to enjoy more accretion in the course of 2018.
Meanwhile, the CBN injected a total of $210m into the interbank window of the foreign exchange market on Monday for requests in the wholesale, Small and Medium Enterprises and invisibles segments of the market.
A breakdown of the figure indicated that the CBN offered $100m to the wholesale sector, while the SMEs and invisibles windows each received $55m.
In his remarks on the nation’s external reserves, Emefiele had in November last year said, “It is my belief that if we remain resolute with our efforts, policies and actions, we can attain a foreign exchange reserves position of about $40bn by end of 2018.”
Emefiele had in December disclosed that the nation’s foreign reserves rose to $38.2bn with the issuance of Eurobonds by the Federal Government.
He described the external reserves figure as the highest in 39 months.
In November, the Federal Government raised $3bn through Eurobonds, which were oversubscribed by about $11bn and split across 10-year and 30-year tranches at issuance yield of 6.5 % and 7.6%, respectively.