Transactions on Nigeria's investors forex window hit $4.9 bln

Offshore investors have traded a total of $4.9 billion on the Nigeria's investor and exporter foreign exchange window since the market was established in April, bankers and analysts have said.
Analysts said the improved dollar liquidity in the market was a reflection increased flows of capital into the economy by fund managers to purchase fixed income and equity in Africa's biggest economy.
Last week, foreign investors purchased 2.3 percent in Dangote Cement valued at 86.1 billion naira.
The central bank last year lifted a temporary peg on the currency, but to protect its precariously low foreign reserves it introduced a convoluted exchange rate system that sees different buyers paying various rates for dollars.
Before the investors' window was introduced in April, the central bank was the main supplier of hard currency on the interbank forex market, after foreign investors fled naira assets in the wake of an oil price slump in 2014.
Equity dealers said attractive valuation in Nigeria's local bourse and hope the country will get out of recession this year have spurred capital flows into the economy boost dollar liquidity and helping to keep the local currency stable.
Foreign investors fled Nigerian assets at the start of the oil rout mid-2014, triggering a currency crisis which led the economy into its first recession in a quarter of a century.
The central bank in April started to allow investors to trade the naira at market-determined rates over the phone, a move intended to improve dollar supply, but one that introduced yet another exchange rate, after a series of capital curbs.
In July the bank said investors had traded $3.83 billion since it launched the new window four months ago.
The forex moves have also boosted stocks which have gained 38.2 percent this year. The stock market fell 40 percent in dollar terms last year as the naira lost a third of its value.
Nigeria has at least six exchange rates which the central bank has used to mask pressure on the naira.
FMDQ last week asked lenders to show price quotes on the naira on screens instead of giving them by phone, to improve liquidity.
The naira has remained range bound at both the official interbank market and the black market in the last couple of weeks due to improved liquidity in the market.
The naira traded at 365 to the dollar on the black market, the level it has traded in the lat four weeks. On the interbank market, the currency has stuck at 305.90 per dollar while it was quoted on the investor window at 367.04 to the dollar on Monday.