Nigerians agree for currency swap with China to increase naira value

_{Nigeria on Tuesday agreed a currency
swap deal with China, officials said,
as it looks for ways to shore up its
ailing currency and fund a record
budget deficit, possibly by issuing
yuan-denominated bonds in China.
The West African nation is facing its
worst economic crisis in decades as
sinking oil prices eat into its foreign
reserves and the naira weakens
against other currencies.
Nigeria has been for months looking
for sources to help plug a projected
2016 deficit of 2.2 trillion naira ($11.1
billion) as President Muhammadu
Buhari plans to triple capital
spending.
During Buhari's visit to Beijing, the
Industrial and Commercial Bank of
China Ltd (ICBC), the world's biggest
lender, and Nigeria's central bank
signed a deal on yuan transactions.
"It means that the renminbi (yuan) is
free to flow among different banks in
Nigeria, and the renminbi has been
included in the foreign exchange
reserves of Nigeria," Lin Songtian,
director general of the African affairs
department of China's foreign ministry,
told reporters.
The agreement was reached following
a meeting between Buhari and Chinese
President Xi Jinping.
The move comes after Finance
Minister Kemi Adeosun said on
Saturday that Nigeria was looking at
panda bonds - yuan-denominated
bonds sold by overseas entities on the
mainland -saying they that would be
cheaper than Eurobonds.
Nigeria's central bank has said it
plans to diversify its foreign exchange
reserves away from the dollar by
switching a stockpile into yuan. It
converted up to a tenth of its reserves
into yuan five years .source:STV}