Nigeria’s local currency, the naira is one of the world’s worst-performing currencies, after the Lebanese pound and the Argentine peso, Bloomberg said in a report on Friday.
The report corroborates an earlier report by the World Bank that noted that the currency weakened by nearly 40 per cent against the US dollar in 2023.
Bloomberg said the naira weakened by 55 per cent against the USD this year.
With the naira–USD exchange rate at N1,043 in the official market and N1,208 in the black market as of Thursday night, Bloomberg analysts predict a further plummet in 2024 “with no rebound in sight.”
The American media company blamed the naira’s continued fall on the unification of the official and black market foreign exchange rates in mid-June by President Bola Tinubu.
“The depreciation began after the central bank allowed the currency to trade more freely in June, and Tinubu scrapped costly petrol subsidies,” Bloomberg’s report said. Tinubu’s reforms caused the naira to fall from N473.83/$ to over N1,000.
“Unless President Bola Tinubu’s government lures international investors or ramps up oil output, the naira may slip further,” the media outlet warned.
