On February 3, it was raised to N1, 413.62.
Also, on February 10, 2024, the rate was increased to N1,417.63, N1,444.56 on February 12, and N1,481.48 on February 14.
At the beginning of April, the import duty rate stood at N1,330. 26 and remained unchanged till April 4.
The downward trend continued on April 5 when the rate was N1,260.49 to the greenback.
The customs portal recorded some stability on April 6 and 7 as the import duty rate remained at N1,251.2 per dollar.
Checks by thecable on April 8, show that the agency has further reduced its FX rate to N1,246.67.
The customs typically adopts FX rates recommended by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for import duties based on trading activities from the country’s official forex market.
However, the CBN is yet to update its portal with the weighted average rate at the time of filing this report.
Since the beginning of the year, the apex bank under the leadership of Olayemi Cardoso, has introduced several policies to improve the FX market and strengthen the naira.
Part of the interventions includes the occasional sale of dollars to the bureau de change (BDC) operators to ensure sufficient liquidity in the market.
On February 27, the apex bank resumed the sale of FX to BDCs.
In the first tranche, each “eligible” BDC was allocated $20,000 at the rate of “N1,301/$, while the second tranche of $10,000 was sold to the BDCs at the rate of N1,251/$.
Following the interventions, the apex bank said the economy
recorded over $1.5 billion inflow in March.
On April 8, CBN announced another sale of dollars to the BDC
operators at the rate of N1,101/$.
According to the apex bank, each BDC operator is to sell the
dollars to eligible customers at a rate not exceeding 1.5 percent above the
purchase price.
This means that BDCs are not expected to sell above
N1,117/$1.
On February 23 the CBN directed customs and other related
parties to adopt the closing rate in the official foreign exchange (FX) window
for import duty.
