CBN: FX spending on food importation dropped by half in January

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) says foreign exchange (FX) utilisation for food importation dropped by half in January 2021.

The CBN’s economic report on ‘Sectoral Utilisation of Foreign Exchange’ for January said a total of $160 million was spent from Nigeria’s FX on importing food in January.

This represents a 48 percent decline when compared to $310 million spent in December 2020.

The report said FX worth $2.75 billion was expended across sectors, representing a 40.3 percent decrease from the preceding month.

“Total foreign exchange utilisation by sectors decreased by 40.3 per cent from the preceding month to $2.75billion, reflecting a drop in end-user demand for foreign exchange, owing to year-end ease in economic activities,” the report said.

“Visible and invisible imports, constituting 46.9 per cent and 53.1 per cent respectively of the total foreign exchange utilisation declined by 53.4 per cent and 20.7 per cent to $0.77billion and $0.87billion respectively. A disaggregation of foreign exchange utilisation for visible transactions showed that the amount utilised for industrial, manufactured products, and food products sub-sectors amounted to $0.30billion, $0.23billion, and $0.16billion respectively, relative to $0.72billion, $0.38billion, and $0.31billion in the preceding month…”