Management of foreign exchange resources under Nigeria's structural adjustment programme

Abstract

Tbe paper seeks to appraise the foreign exchange management strategies under the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) in Nigeria. As a background, it reviews the foreign exchange management strategies in the pre-SAP period which largely relied on the use of trade and exchange controls. The available evidence is that the use of the control tools contributed to some extent to reducing balance of payments deficits, but at high costs in the form of increased malpractices and constraints on the production proress. The associated over-valued naira exchange rate discouraged production for export, encouraged imports of finished goods and raw materials and gave rise to virile parallel foreign exchange markets.