THE Nigerian government is expecting $10 billion in foreign currency inflows in the next few weeks to ease liquidity in a foreign exchange (FX) market, the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun, said on Monday, October 23.

Edun disclosed this at the Nigeria Economic Summit, attended by President Bola Tinubu and many of his senior officials in Abuja.

“There is a line of sight on $10 billion worth of inflow of foreign exchange in a relatively near future, in weeks rather than months,” Edun said at the business conference.

The minister further disclosed that President Tinubu had on Thursday, October 19, signed two executive orders to support the currency market.

According to him, the executive orders allow domestic issuance of instruments in foreign currency and all cash outside the banking system to be brought into the banks.

He said liquidity would also come from state oil firm crude sales and foreign investment firms willing to invest in Nigeria.

“These measures taken as a whole and comprehensively should lead to the flow of foreign exchange.

“In addition, from the supply of foreign exchange through NNPC, increased production, reduced expenditure, from transactions such as forward sales, from our discussions with sovereign wealth funds that are ready to invest and provide advances alongside that investment,” Edun said.

Noting that the President haf taken measures to ease illiquidity in the market, he said the FX market had not been functioning correctly because of the supply shortfalls.

Nigeria faces chronic dollar shortages, leaving the Central Bank of Nigeria with an estimated FX backlog of $10 billion to settle the demands of foreign investors seeking to repatriate funds and airlines seeking to send money from ticket sales abroad.

The results of the shortages have left many businesses and individuals turning to the black market, where the naira currency has hit successive record lows, widening the gap with the official rate.

On Monday, the naira hit a record low of N1,200/$1 on the black market, two days after it fell to a new low of almost N1,000 on the official market.

Experts had told The ICIR that the Federal Government should assists in bailing out the CBN by finding foreign exchange inflows into the market in the short run, and the naira would continue to depreciate against other currencies.