Forex market outstanding order book ‘declines’

THE foreign exchange market’s total outstanding order book declined to K1.5 billion in December 2018 from K2.5 billion in 2017, says Central Bank Governor Loi Bakani.
This meant that the market was able to serve them the foreign currency that they needed.
Bakani said that from total outstanding orders, backlog had declined to K0.4 billion in 2018 from K1.4 billion in 2017. “This reflects the gradual normalisation of the foreign exchange market,” he said on Friday.
“As a result, the time taken for the market to clear orders has improved to less than three months on average from five months on average in 2017.
“Small orders that are less than K3 million are cleared daily.”
Bakani said it was wrong to think that the US$500 million or K1.6 billion proceeds of the inaugural sovereign bond would completely resolve the imbalance between supply of and demand for foreign currency in the foreign exchange market.
“It is important to point out that at any trading day, supply of foreign currency would not necessarily be equal to the demand for foreign currency,” he said.