Players in the real sector dominated the retail Dutch Auction System conducted by the Central Bank of Nigeria on Tuesday. According to the sales report, which was published by the apex bank on Friday, 3347 firms got access to the dollars via the 26 banks, which qualified at the rate of N1,495 per dollar cut-off rate. About $876.26m was sold during the auction, which the CBN initiated to mitigate the rising demand pressures in the foreign exchange market and to promote price discovery. The sales report showed that businesses in the manufacturing sector benefited from the auction, as they got dollars to import spare parts of machinery, industrial raw materials, plain paper in sheets, raw materials for books), pharmaceutical products, raw materials for brewery, brewery equipment, plant and machinery. The other reasons for which the industries got the FX included tobacco rolling paper, spare parts for low loaders and cranes, frozen fish, etc. Promasidor Nigeria Limited got about $59.772 for Cowbell Instant dairy creamer, and Sumal Foods Limited got dollars for glucose syrup, hydrogenated vegetable fat and dextrose monohy.

Punch