NIGERIA-CHINA CURRENCY SWAP DEAL:

N15.5bn

The Central Bank of Nigeria has released N15.79 billion (297.99 million Chinese Yuan) to Nigerian businessmen under the currency swap deal.

The money is to enable local businessmen to import goods from China in the three months post implementation period of the Nigeria China currency swap deal.

Data collated from the CBN from July 27, 2018 when the first tranche of CNY69.858 million was released by the apex bank to October 19, 2018 when it released CNY53.444million showed it had released CYN290.2 million to importers.

The Yuan was for Renminbi denominated Letters of Credit raw materials and machinery and agriculture and within the period under review, the CNY1 exchanged for N53.35. The dollar remained at N305 CBN rate.

There is no official data showing how much Naira the Chinese businesses have drawn based on the deal as the CBN didn’t provide the data when requested by our correspondent.

Nigeria entered the bilateral currency swap agreement with the Peoples Bank of China (PBoC). The deal was signed on April 27 2018, in China.

The Governor of the CBN, Mr. Godwin Emefiele, led CBN officials while PBoC Governor, Dr. Yi Gang, led the Chinese team at the official signing ceremony in Beijing, China, ending an over two years of painstaking negotiations by both central banks.

“The transaction, which is valued at Renminbi (RMB) 16 billion, or the equivalent of about $2.5bn, is aimed at providing adequate local currency liquidity to Nigerians and the Chinese,” the CBN had said in a statement. In naira terms, the deal is worth about N720 billion. The settlement banks are Standard