By Matthew Denis
The Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy Wale Edun has disclosed that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has signed two executive orders geared towards ensuring liquidity in the forex market.
The Minister made the disclosure at a panel session at the ongoing Nigeria Economic Summit, where he answered questions about stabilising the foreign exchange market and enshrining liquidity in the market held in Abuja on Monday.
He said, “President Tinubu has signed two executive orders geared towards ensuring liquidity in the forex market.
“Mr President announced that he had taken measures to ease illiquidity in the forex market, which we know is very problematic at this time.
“The market is illiquid; it’s not functioning properly because there is no supply and there are various reasons for that. The solution that the President has put on the table is that he has signed an executive order that effectively allows, under forbearance, all the cash that is in the domestic economy to legally come into the formal money supply.”
Mr. Edun revealed that around $10 billion of forex inflows is expected within weeks rather than months.
According to him in addition from the supply of foreign exchange through NNPC, increased production, reduced expenditure, from transactions such as forward sales from our discussions with sovereign wealth funds that are ready to invest and provide advanced alongside that investment, there is a line of sight of $10 billion worth of foreign exchange in the relatively near future in weeks rather than months.
The Minister added that there is another executive order that allows domestic issuance of foreign currency instruments so that they will have the incentive to provide that foreign exchange from whatever source.