The Nigerian Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning, yesterday, made a U-turn on the statement credited to the Minister, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed, to the effect that the Federal Government will jettison the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)’s official foreign exchange (FX) rate for the Investors’ and Exporters’ (I & E) window rate in its transactions.

Central Bank of Nigeria CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, held on to his gun, describing as false the report attributed to the minister suggesting that the Bank has embraced a flexible exchange rate regime and harmonised the different rates. He insisted the apex bank still maintained managed floating, which allows it intervene in the market occasionally.

Emefiele said: “Let me repeat that Nigeria had not changed from its foreign exchange management policy. Nigeria remains on a managed float. What the managed float regime means is that the CBN, being the institution that has the core mandate for forex administration in the country would watch the market and see how the market operates.

He added, “Depending on its reading, it would come from time to time to intervene in the Forex market. It might interest us to know that since January, the CBN has not intervened in I & E window. The market had always operated within the band of about N409/$ and at some time it attains N412/$ and goes to N413/$.

Orders to U.S. factories for big-ticket manufactured goods slumped 1.1% in February with demand in a key sector that tracks business investment also dropping.

Orders had been rising for nine consecutive months, including a sizable 3.5% jump in January, according to the Commerce Department.

The size of the drop surprised economists, though it is likely that there was significant disruption from severe winter storms that hit much of the country last month, on top of ongoing supply-chain problems.

The category that covers business investment dropped 0.8% in February following solid gains of 0.6% in January and 1.5% in December.

The volatile transportation sector fell 1.6% with demand for commercial aircraft, a sector plagued by the huge drop in air travel during the pandemic, shooting up 103%. Contributing was beleaguered manufacturer Boeing, which for the first time since December 2019 booked positive net orders.

But orders for autos and auto parts slumped 8.7% with numerous plants shutdown due to a global shortage of semiconductors, a critical component used in cars and trucks.

Airlines are considering a standard ‘travel pass’ criteria for international air travelers in the COVID-19 era in Nigeria.

Though the technology-driven pass aims at an efficient travel experience according to the Authority, part of the conditions will include health credentials and COVID-19 vaccination.

Similarly, the Presidential Task Force (PTF) has directed that only results from accredited private laboratories should be accepted from outbound passengers effective March 22, 2021.

Hence, the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) has threatened to sanction airlines that accept polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test results from unapproved laboratories.

The travel pass proposal made headway when the International Air Transport Association (IATA) announced the arrival at London’s Heathrow Airport of the first traveler using the IATA travel pass app to manage travel health credentials.

Director-General and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of IATA, Alexandre de Juniac, said the successful implementation of IATA travel pass in this trial with Singapore Airlines passengers demonstrated that technology could securely, conveniently and efficiently help travelers and governments to manage travel health credentials.