With the depreciation, the gap between the official and parallel market exchange rates continued to widen amid increased demand for the greenback.
At the official market, the naira gained 0.11 against the dollar to close at N440.67 on Wednesday, according to details on FMDQ OTC Securities Exchange — a platform that oversees official FX trading in Nigeria.Currency traders known as Bureaux De Change operators , who spoke to TheCable on Thursday in Lagos, said they purchase the greenback at N735/$, and then sell at N742 to make a profit of N7.“People keep coming to buy dollars but there is a shortage of dollars in the market.
The CBN has also consistently maintained that the parallel market represented less than one percent of FX transactions and should never be used to determine Nigeria’s naira/dollar exchange rate.