The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), revealed in its economic report of the fourth quarter 2024, published on Monday, that the country’s net exchange (FX) display of the country reached an impressive $ 17.39 billion in the fourth quarter 2024.
This recovery, driven by a flood of autonomous sources such as foreign investments, funding and export income, signals a reinforced Forex market – a critical buoy for an economy that fights with the decline of its revenue revenues formerly dominant. In this context, Nigeria has more and more supported on the shipments of the diaspora to consolidate its foreign reserves, a quarter of work which turns out to be vital as an oil income reservoirs.
According to CBN data, total FX inputs increased from $ 20.62% to $ 27.81 billion in the fourth quarter of 2024, compared to 23.06 billion dollars in the third quarter, powered by a remarkable jump of 47.55% of autonomous entries, from $ 11.03 billion to $ 16.27 billion. These funds, which flow from private channels rather than official chests, include a powerful mixture of diaspora funds, foreign portfolio investments and non -oil export products.
Register For TEKEDIA Mini-MBA Edition 17 (June 9 – September 6, 2025)) Today for early reductions. An annual for access to Blurara.com.
Tekedia Ai in Masterclass Business open registration.
Join Tekedia Capital Syndicate and co-INivest in large world startups.
Register become a better CEO or director with CEO program and director of Tekedia.
Meanwhile, the entries through the CBN itself plunged slightly, down 4.05% to $ 11.54 billion, against 12.03 billion dollars, a drop alluding to the milder official receipts-perhaps on a reduction in foreign direct investments (IDE), subsidies or shipments of funds channeled by the government. Despite this, the net influx increased by 14.99% to 17.39 billion dollars, against $ 15.13 billion, with autonomous sources providing a large number of $ 14.84 billion (compared to $ 10.40 billion) and the CBN contributing to 2.56 billion more modest dollars (against 4.72 billion dollars Q3).
This wave of Forex intervenes while Nigeria is cluster with an economic slowdown which saw the FX reserves depreciate considerably. For decades, crude oil was the foundation of its FX income, supplying the reserves and stabilizing the Naira. But the drop in petroleum income – considerably largely by a low production of oil, insecurity, vandalism and theft – exposed the fragility of this dependence. In response, the government has doubled on the diversification of its FX flows, the Diaspora funds being priority.
The CBN reported an astounding increase of 130% of the payment entries to $ 553 million by July 2024, a figure which underlines the growing strike of the diaspora of 15 million Nigeria.
In November 2024, the Minister of Finance, Wale Edun, announced a net entrance of $ 2.35 billion in the CBN reserves, which allowed him to stabilize the Naira in the middle of the turbulence of the market.
“This increase in reserves changes the game,” said EDUN, stressing the improvement in liquidity and a narrowing difference between official and parallel exchange rates.
The articles on X of analysts echo this optimism, many connecting the relative calm of the Naira at the end of 2024 to these entries. However, the history of Forex tells an economy in difficulty. The outings increased by 31.37% to reach $ 10.42 billion in the fourth quarter of the third quarter levels, driven by an increase of 22.98% of CBN outputs to 8.99 billion dollars and an increase of 129.59% of autonomous outings to $ 1.43 billion. These outputs – linked to import payments, debt maintenance and capital repatriation – have highlighted the pressure on the gains of the Nigeria FX. However, the net intrigue of $ 17.39 billion offers a breathing room, a stamp against outings that once drained dry reserves.
The oil, although decreasing, did not bow completely. The thrust of the federal government to accelerate gross production reached its brand in 2024, achieving a target of 2 million barrels per day (BPD).
“Oil remains our budgetary anchor,” reiterated Edun, treating it as a safety net for income deficits.
This stage, twinned with non -oil growing exports, has maintained export gains in the autonomous ignition mixture. But it is the funding of funds that steal the spotlight, their growth of 130% by mid-2024 signaling a change in the FX game book in Nigeria.
Policies such as the electronic system of correspondence of foreign exchanges (EFEMS), introduced for FX transactions on the Nigerian foreign exchange market (NFEM), and designed to automatically equal purchase and sales orders, have also reduced volatility on the market.
However, economists have warned that dependence on external entries would never stimulate foreign reserves in Nigeria to stabilize the FX market,
