About 12 months after PREMIUM TIMES reported that Nigeria’s external reserve was well below the balance on the gross reserves claimed by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), global financial service firm JP Morgan on Monday put the nation’s reserve estimate at $3.7 billion.
“Net FX reserves are significantly lower than previously estimated,” the firm said in its Africa Emerging Markets Research dated 17 August. “Based on partial information from the audited financial accounts, we estimate that CBN’s net FX reserves were around US$3.7bn at the end of last year, from US$14.0bn at the end-2021,” it added.
In arriving at the estimate, JP Mogan said it made a few assumptions which if incorrect would substantially change the picture. The firm said the assumptions include the addition of $5.0 billion in IMF Special Drawing Rights (SDR) to external reserves in order to arrive at total gross FX reserves of $37.8 billion, broadly in line with the 30-day moving average of…