Olayemi Cardoso, governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), says the country recorded a total foreign exchange inflow of about $24 billion in the first quarter (Q1) of 2024.
The Cable reports that, Cardoso made this known during an interview with Bloomberg TV on Tuesday.
The CBN governor stated that the central bank's monetary policy tools are having a favorable impact on the foreign exchange market.
According to Cardoso, the FX inflow for Q1 2024 is approximately 50% more than the inflows observed in previous quarters up to 2021.
"The tools are having a positive effect. So we expect that if this trend continues, liquidity will increase," he said.
Cardoso stated that the CBN has formed a committee to promote increased inflows of diaspora capital into the official FX market.
He stated that the committee reported directly to him, with the express goal of tripling the inflow of foreign exchange from international monetary transactions.
The governor also stated that the committee has begun to produce positive results, with an increase in inflows from Nigerians in the diaspora.
"We've had a recognition of the huge role the Nigerian diasporans play in remitting tremendous amounts of money into the system over some time," according to him.
"We established a committee that reports directly to me in order to quadruple the quantity of foreign exchange inflows from IMTOs that serve that section of autonomous players.
"Capital inflows are quite significant. The reason for this is that in Nigeria, the foreign exchange rate has a considerable impact on inflation.
We feel that there is an area outside of typical day-to-day operations in which the NNPC and exporters can help close the gap.
"It is already beginning to produce results. Again, we are optimistic that these kind of assessments will boost liquidity in our market."
According to figures released on the CBN website, the country's foreign exchange reserves stood at $33.91 billion as of June 24.
In March, the apex bank said that the economy received more than $1.5 billion in foreign exchange in the same month, demonstrating that its monetary policy actions are effective.