Iran government to create parallel currency market – CBI chief
By Trend
The head of the Central Bank of Iran said the government plans
to create a parallel market next week in a bid to combat the black
market and facilitate the trade of foreign currencies in the
country.
“The details of the secondary market have been written up,”
Valiollah Seif said on June 25, Tasnim news agency reported.
He added that the creation of the market would cut out the
middlemen and stop them trading currencies in the country’s
alleys.
Seif said the government will use 20 percent of its revenues from
non-oil exports to import non-essential goods at an agreed
rate.
“A system is being developed that can determine which goods have
been imported into the country using the US dollar at the rate of
42,000 rials,” he said.
The decision came after the Iranian rial plunged to a record low
against the US dollar on the unofficial market on Sunday,
continuing its slide amid fears of returning US sanctions after
President Donald Trump in May withdrew from a deal on Tehran’s
nuclear program.
The dollar was being offered for as much as 87,000 rials, compared
to around 75,500 on Thursday, the last trading day before Iran’s
weekend, according to foreign exchange websites, which track the
unofficial market.
The fall of the national currency has provoked a public outcry over
the quick rise of prices of imported consumer goods.
Merchants at the mobile phone shopping centers Aladdin and Charsou
in central Tehran protested against the rapid depreciation of the
rial by shutting down their shops on Sunday, Iranian media
reported.
Hours later, Information and Communications Technology Minister
Mohammad Javad Azari-Jahromi said on Twitter that he visited the
protesting merchants.
“I will try to help provide hard currency for (mobile) equipment
(imports),” Azari-Jahromi wrote, adding, “The merchants’ activity
has now gone back to normal.”
In an effort to halt the slide, Iranian authorities announced in
April they were unifying the dollar’s official and black market
exchange rates at a single level of 42,000, and banning any trade
at other rates under the threat of arrest.
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