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One month after JP Morgan announced that Nigeria would be excluded from its Government Bond Index-Emerging Market (GBI-EM), London-headquartered multinational banking and financial institution, Barclays, has said it would carry out consultations with its index users to determine the eligibility of Nigeria's sovereign debt in its Emerging Market Local Currency Government Index.

The removal of Nigeria from the JPMorgan’s GBI-EM was blamed on the tightening of liquidity in the foreign exchange market by the Central Bank of Nigeria, who has been tackling the volatility of the naira. The Nigerian currency has lost about 22% of its value against the U.S. dollar since November 2014.

According to a statement by Barclays, its annual review process will take place through October and the result of its consultations will be made public subsequently.

The emerging market local currency bonds space provides investors searching for yields with alternative fixed income instruments for strong capital appreciation opportunity. However, with declining emerging market fundamentals, especially among commodity producers such Nigeria which, the opportunities are limited.

There are 19 countries in the index with Nigeria and South Africa being the only African economies whose local currencies are tracked in the Barclays index for emerging market local currencies.

Brazil, South Korea, Mexico, Thailand and Poland are the top five performers on the Barlcays EM Local Currency Government Index.