President says CBI capable of harnessing forex fluctuations
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani announced on Wednesday that the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) is capable of getting fluctuations in the forex market under control.
Fluctuations in the forex market go back to two or three months ago [after the outbreak of coronavirus pandemic in Iran in February], President Rouhani said at the cabinet session held in Tehran on Wednesday, IRNA reported.
Conditions in the country are slowly improving, said the president, expressing satisfaction over the amount of oil and non-oil exports during the past month.
Despite the enemies’ psychological propaganda, the government has been working to remove obstacles in this regard, he added.
As the president stressed, the Judiciary will confront those who misuse the forex market to put pressure on people.
On Iran’s exports, the president stated that the country will witness 41 billion dollars’ worth of non-oil exports by the end of the Iranian year on March 20, 2021.
CBI authorities have ramped up pressure on the country’s exporters to return the hard currency they have earned over the past two-and-a-half years to the forex market where prices have soared to highs not seen before.
CBI issued a statement on Tuesday saying that exporters would have until July 21 to bring back the money they have earned from exports to a government-sponsored system for currency exchange known as NIMA.
The statement warned that the CBI will publish the names and identities of exporters who refuse to do so.
Samad Karimi, who leads the CBI Department on Exports, told IRNA that exporters owe a total of €27.5 billion for shipments they have sold to customers in other countries since 2018, but have refused to bring the money back to NIMA.
NIMA is set up to help Iranian importers to obtain hard currency at a price lower than those existing in the unofficial market. The system is currently selling the US dollar at prices between 160,000 to 170,000 rials.
Karimi said exporters who keep refusing to supply their hard currency to the system would face legal action.
He also said that the CBI had launched a joint scheme with Iran’s Ministry of Trade to suspend trade certificates issued to individuals who refuse to supply their hard currency to the market.
The CBI maintains an official price of 42,000 for the Iranian rial against the US dollar which is only applicable to transactions involving the imports of basic goods into Iran.
The multi-price system in the Iranian forex market was introduced after the United States imposed its unilateral sanctions on the country’s exports of oil in 2018, causing a decline in the government’s foreign currency revenues.