The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has stated that the country’s external reserves rose by $243.83m in 19 days.
Naija News reports that the apex bank made the disclosure in a report on data on movement in reserves on its website on Wednesday.
The CBN revealed that the reserve value rose from $39.54bn as of April 1, 2022, to $39.78bn as of April 19, 2022.
The external reserves fell by $313m in March, after starting the month at $39.86bn, before falling to $39.55bn on March 30.
In a chat with The PUNCH, a member of the Monetary Policy Committee, Prof. Mike Obadan, said the oil sector has been a major contributor to the government’s external revenue through crude oil and gas export receipts.
Obadan added that the oil sector has contributed over 90 percent of the nation’s foreign exchange earnings and external reserves accretion.
He said, “But for some time now, this has not been so due to two factors: a huge volume of crude oil theft which has prevented the country from meeting even the OPEC-approved production quota, and the inability of the NNPC, for many months, to make any remittance from direct oil export sales into the Federation Account and external reserves account.
“These are alarming developments which have adversely impacted government’s finances, external reserves accretion and exchange rate stability.
“The inhibiting factors are what the government can check in the short-term.”
He, however, expressed worry that all the foreign exchange earned from the export of crude oil and gas was used to import refined petroleum products and pay petroleum subsidy.
This article was originally published on Nigeria News