BREAKING: CBN lifts ban on 43 items, to intervene in FX market
By Mustapha Salisu
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has announced the lifting of ban on the importation of all 43 items previously restricted by the 2015 Circular referenced TED/FEM/FPC/GEN/01/010 and its addendums.
The CBN also restated its commitment to boost liquidity in the foreign exchange (forex) market and ensure market transparency and credibility.
The items are:
- Rice
- Cement
- Margarine
- Palm kernel/palm oil products/vegetables oils
- Meat and processed meat products
- Vegetables and processed
- vegetable products
- Poultry – chicken, eggs, turkey
- Private airplanes/jets
- Indian incense
- Tinned fish in sauce (geisha)/sardines
- Cold-rolled steel sheets
- Galvanised steel sheets
- Roofing sheets
- Wheelbarrows
- Head pans
- Metal boxes and containers
- Enamelware
- Steel drums
- Steel pipes
- Wire rods (deformed and not deformed)
- Iron rods and reinforcing bars
- Wire mesh
- Steel nails
- Security and razor wire
- Wood particle boards and panels
- Wood fibre boards and panels
- Plywood boards and panels
- Wooden doors
- Furniture
- Toothpicks
- Glass and Glassware
- Kitchen utensils
- Tableware
- Tiles – vitrified and ceramic
- Textiles
- Woven fabrics
- Clothes
- Plastic and rubber products, polypropylene granules, cellophane wrappers
- Soap and cosmetics
- Tomatoes/tomato paste
- Eurobond/foreign currency bond/ share purchases
- Dairy/milk
- Maize.
In a press release issued on Thursday by Isa AbdulMumin CBN’s Director of Corporate Communications, disclosed the Apex bank will continue to promote orderliness and professional conduct by all participants in the forex market to ensure market forces determine exchange rates on a willing buyer – willing seller principle.
According to Isa, the CBN also reiterated that the prevailing forex rates should be referenced from platforms such as the CBN website, FMDQ, and other recognised or appointed trading systems to promote price discovery, transparency, and credibility in the FX rates.
“As part of its responsibility to ensure price stability, the CBN said it will boost liquidity in the Nigerian forex market by interventions from time to time. As market liquidity improves, these CBN interventions will gradually decrease,” the statement said.
The CBN also said it has set as one of its goals the attainment of a single FX market. Consultation is ongoing with market participants to achieve this goal.
