43 Non-Eligible Items Remain Banned From I&E Window — CBN

The Central Bank of Nigeria on Friday said that the 43 items restricted from accessing Foreign Exchange from the official window remain banned from the Investors and Exporters (I&E) window.

This means the restriction of foreign exchange allocation for the importation of the 43 items still stands.

The bank said this in a series of Q&A tweets Friday afternoon to explain the operational changes to the foreign exchange market.

“The status quo remains on the 43 non-eligible items. The items are not permitted to be funded from the I&E window,” the CBN said.

The apex bank had Wednesday announced the collapse of all forex windows into the Investors & Exporters (I&E) window in its efforts to unify all segments of the Nigerian forex market.

“All transactions will now be done through the Investors and Exporters (I&E) window, where the exchange rate will be determined by market forces. Applications for medicals, school fees, BTA/PTA, and SMEs would continue to be processed through deposit money banks,” the bank said in a statement.

In June 2015, the Central Bank announced that some 41 items were “Not Valid for Foreign Exchange”, on the grounds that they could easily be produced in Nigeria rather than being imported into the country.

Some of the affected items include rice, cement, margarine, palm kernel, palm oil products, vegetable oils, meat and processed meat products, vegetables and processed vegetable products, poultry, tomatoes/tomato paste, soap and cosmetics, and clothes.

Other items include private airplanes/jets, Indian incense, tinned fish in sauce, cold rolled steel sheets, ggalvanised teel sheets, roofing sheets, wheelbarrows, head pans, metal boxes/containers, enamelware, steel drums and pipes, wire mesh, steel nails, wood particle boards, and panels.

Equally affected were security and razor wire, wood particle and fiber boards and panels, wooden doors, furniture, toothpicks, glass/glassware, kitchen utensils, tableware, tiles (vitrified, ceramics), textiles, wooden fabrics, plastic/rubber products, polypropylene granules, and cellophane wrappers.

The apex bank subsequently added fertiliser and maize/corn to the list of banned items.

According to the apex bank, the I&E market functions by a “willing buyer, willing seller” system, where an entity with demand for FX seeks out another entity with FX to sell at an agreed price through an authorised dealer.