FSDH Research’s analysis of Nigeria’s Balance of Payments (BOP) position as at Q1 2018 confirms that the country’s external position remains strong but vulnerable to developments in the crude oil and gas market.
The provisional BOP figures for Q1 2018 published by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) indicate that the overall BOP for Nigeria shows a surplus of US$7.32bn in Q1 2018.
The analysis said: “A strong BOP helps to sustain stability in the foreign exchange market and reduce exchange rate risk.”
Nigeria’s inflows into the current account were dominated by crude oil and gas exports, accounting for 93.28 per cent of total exports and 64.46 per cent of total inflows.
The financial account closed the quarter at a net outflow of $10.29bn from a net inflow of $355.88m in Q1 2017.
The BOP report shows that the external reserves as at Q1 2018 stood at $46.73bn compared with $30bn in Q1 2017.
The reserves as at Q1 2018 could finance approximately 16.2 months of imports higher than the global and West African Monetary Zone benchmarks of 3 months and 6 months respectively.
