US dollar reaches record high against Iran’s rial

Iran’s national currency, the rial, plunged by more than six percent against the US dollar in the free market on Sunday thus maintaining a depreciation streak that began a few months ago.

According to Press TV, the US dollar was traded at under 54,000 rials in early trading of Sunday but jumped to more than 57,000 rials within hours. It stood at 57,300 rials at the end of the trading — a level described by a section of the media as the highest ever recorded.

ISNA reported that official exchange dealers had stopped trading the hard currency after it reached record highs against the rial.

This, it added, provided an opportunity to street money changers to take control of the market and sell dollars ‘at any price they desired’.

The high rates of the US dollar also pushed up the euro. It ended the day at 68,500 rials from lows of around 62,000 rials in early trading Sunday, according to Fars News Agency.

Iran’s police shut down several currency exchange shops and arrested a number of money changers after a serious turmoil in exchange rates.

They intervened after the plunge of the Iranian rial which had dropped to around 45,000 against the US dollar from 37,700 in mid-2017.

Commercial bankers earlier linked the rial’s slide partly to seasonal demand for US dollars, which rises around the end of the Iranian year (March 20) when many Iranians travel abroad.