Nigeria to raise $30bn from inaugural forex bond

Nigeria targets up to $30 billion from its inaugural foreign currency-denominated bond issuance planned for June, 2024.

Patience Oniha, Director-General of the Debt Management Office, disclosed this recently in an interview with BusinessDay.

Accordingly, the government authority said the sovereign domestic foreign currency issuance aligns with moves to attract more forex inflows to stabilise the naira, which had suffered immensely from dollar shortages.

“It’s when we appoint the advisers that we can probably do a projection.
Oniha said: “But the assumption is that many Nigerians hold dollars in their domiciliary accounts, and not just individuals but institutions including banks and Nigerians in the diaspora as well.

“So it’s a way of bringing dollar liquidity into the system; the federal government of Nigeria (FGN) will get needed dollar liquidity. The target investors are individual Nigerians and institutions, and if Nigerians in the diaspora want to invest, they can also.”

The development comes as the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister for the economy, Wale Edun, recently announced that a debut forex bond is planned for the second quarter of 2024 and will be a short to medium-term instrument.