FOREX: BANKS SEEK CUSTOMERS TO BUY SURPLUS FOREIGN CURRENCIES.

                  Banks are seeking customers to buy surplus foreign currencies they hold following the flooding of the banks with dollars by the Central Bank of Nigeria {CBN}.In an effort to support and shore-up the value of Naira,CBN resolved to flood commercial banks with dollars.The banks are reported to be holding excess forex and were seeking customers to buy the foreign currencies.The banks have cleared the backlog of requests for foreign currencies for basic travel allowance,school fees and medicals.In a data released by the CBN,the apex bank,within three weeks,injected more than 1.4 billion dollars for both wholesale and retail intervention into the interbank Forex market.Mr Ayo Teriba,Chief Executive Officer,Economic Associates,is optimistic that the CBN would be able to sustain its intervention on the forex market.Teriba told NAN that increase in oil production and high oil prices had increased the foreign reserve base of the country,''We are back to a situation where the forex at the disposal of the CBN is likely to go up.The CBN could not intervene in the forex market in 2016 because of low oil production,prices and because foreign reserves were also low.Today,oil price is up,reserves have also gone up,the outlook of the oil prices is stable and production in Nigeria is going back to capacity; so it has the capacity to intervene.In a couple of months,the apex bank should be able to meet all of the demands and all the multiple exchange rates will converge.