No fewer than five European countries are known to have approached government officials in attempts to canvass a relaxation of foreign exchange rules so that goods from their countries can come into the country.
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) is one of the agencies that are facing such pressure.
Some of the foreign governments, it was learnt, are unhappy that goods from their countries are among the 41 items the CBN had, last June, officially stopped the sale of dollars for in order to reduce pressure on the naira and conserve Nigeria’s external reserves.
The items are vegetable and processed vegetable products, poultry (chicken, eggs, turkey), private airplanes/jets, Indian incense, tinned fish in sauce (Geisha/Sardines), cold roiled steel sheet and galvanised steel, roofing sheets, wheel barrows, head pans, metal boxes and containers, enamelware, steel drums, steel pipes, wires, rods, wire mesh, steel nails, security and razor wire.
Others are wood particles boards and panels, wood fiber boards and panels, plywood boards and wooden doors, rice, cement, margarine, palm kernel/palm oil products/vegetable oil, meat and processed meat products, toothpicks, glass and glassware, kitchen utensils, tables, textiles, woven fabrics, clothes, plastic and rubber products, soap and cosmetic, tomatoes/tomato paste and Eurobond/foreign currency bond/share purchase.
The CBN had explained that though the items were not banned, their importers should bring them into the country using their own funds without recourse to the Nigerian forex market.
The Central Bank statement listing the items added: “In the continuing effort to sustain the stability of the forex market and ensure the efficient utilisation of forex and the derivation of optimum benefits from goods and service imported into the country, it has become imperative to exclude importers of some goods and services from accessing foreign exchange at the Nigerian foreign exchange market to encourage local production.
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