The Central Bank Will Close Its 500-Million-Dollar Quarterly FX Programme on Wednesday

The National Bank of Ethiopia will offer a further 125 million dollars to commercial banks on Wednesday, 23 September, completing the 500-million-dollar foreign-exchange auction programme it scheduled for the first quarter of the 2026/27 fiscal year.

The central bank announced the sale in a notice dated 22 September, identifying it as the fourth auction in the quarterly programme.

What the number means

Four auctions of 125 million dollars each is a deliberately legible schedule, and legibility is the point. Since the float, the central bank's problem has not only been the level of the rate but the market's inability to plan around supply. A pre-announced quarterly envelope, sold in equal instalments, gives treasurers at commercial banks something to build a forecast on.

Five hundred million dollars in a quarter is real money in this market and small against the import bill. It is best read as the central bank setting a floor under bank-intermediated supply rather than trying to clear the backlog of demand sitting with importers.

The question Wednesday does not answer

The programme now ends. What matters commercially is what replaces it: whether the second quarter is announced at the same size, a larger one, or not announced in advance at all. Each of those is a different signal about how much reserve cover the bank is willing to spend on orderly supply, and importers will read it that way.

Open

The central bank has not published a second-quarter programme, nor the clearing rates and allocation from the first three auctions in this series. Without those, it is not possible to say whether the 500 million dollars met demand at the margin or was absorbed several times over.

Sources: Birr Metrics, 22 September 2026