Nigeria foreign reserves hit $40.4 billion

Nigeria’s foreign reserves reached $40.4 billion as of Jan. 5, an increase of roughly $1 billion from December, the central bank said on Monday.
Successful debt sales, including multiple Eurobond offerings last year, have helped the government accrue billions of dollars in foreign reserves, although they remain far from the peak of $64 billion in August 2008.
In its statement on Monday, Nigeria’s central bank also said it had injected $210 million into the interbank foreign exchange market on Monday, extending efforts to increase liquidity and alleviate dollar shortages.
The bank said the rise reflected its “strategy to effectively manage forex demand by various sectors of the economy”, stressing restrictions on access to foreign currencies for importers of certain items.
The central bank said its policies “had ensured a decline in Nigeria’s import bills from over $5 billion monthly in 2015 to about $1.5 billion in 2017”.