CBN counters JP Morgan, says estimate of Nigeria’s net FX reserves ‘misleading’

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) says the recent estimate of the country’s foreign exchange (FX) reserves by JP Morgan was presWe also read the JP Morgan numbers in-house and we didn’t panic over that. That’s not the first time we are seeing people, institutions reeling out numbers; they must have their intentions to do that, whether to rouse market sentiments, whether to mislead the public,” Mahmud said.

“But the central bank has tried as much as possible to be transparent. What I will say about those numbers is that it is just funny in the sense that number one, reserves like any account balance, is a flow; there are changes that go within it at any particular time.

“Two, even if you have outstanding liabilities, you don’t mark the outstanding liabilities to market on a day and say this is your net balance.entednted “out of context”.

Hassan Mahmud, director of monetary policy department, CBN, spoke when he featured on Moneyline with Nancy, a programme on Africa Independent Television (AIT), on Wednesday.

Earlier this week, JP Morgan estimated that the CBN’s net FX reserves fell to $3.7 billion at the end of 2022, compared to $14 billion in 2021.

Reacting to the development, Mahmoud said that fluctuations, liabilities and encumbrances to the reserves were only natural and normal.