CBI: Forex market stirred by US Psyops
Recent fluctuations in Iran’s foreign currency market are due to US psychological warfare and propaganda campaign, launched since a few weeks ago, aiming to end all sanction exemptions of Tehran, said a top banking official.
In an Instagram post on Wednesday, Governor of the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) Abdolnasser Hemmti added it was the most recent US bid to create tumult in the domestic forex market, IRNA wrote.
In May 2018, under an executive order signed by President Donald Trump, the US withdrew unilaterally from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), signed between Iran and the P5+1 in July 2015, and reimposed Washington’s sanctions against Tehran in a bid to cripple its economy.
Iran retaliated by scaling back its obligations under the nuclear deal.
Having faced a humiliating defeat in the implementation of its hostile policies against the Islamic Republic, the US has mounted bids to induce the international community to reimpose UN sanctions, lifted following the implementation of the JCPOA, on Iran – a move that is highly anticipated to be doomed to another abject failure.
Hemmati advised people against hefty investments in the risky forex market.
He said it seems as if the US does not have any other measure to use as part of its “maximum pressure campaign” which Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif slammed as economic terrorism.
Assuring that maintaining the stability of the market is a CBI priority, Hemmati added the central bank will refrain from controlling rates through oversupplying the market with foreign currency in an effort to prevent arbitrage.
In addition to increasing injection of foreign currency into the secondary foreign exchange market, locally known by the acronym NIMA, he said the CBI announced that domestic petrochemical, steel and mining companies can directly sell their forex revenues to authorized currency exchanges for importing certain products.
This is to facilitate and accelerate providing importers with foreign currency resources, he added.
On Monday, Hemmati said the country’s economy has begun to recover after the shock given by the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic.
The initial CBI report on the economic growth in the first quarter of the current Iranian calendar year (March 20-June 20) indicates that the domestic economy is regaining its balance after the coronavirus shock, he noted.
The country’s economic growth is promising when compared to that of those countries that have not been under any sanction and their financial systems have been struggling only with the coronavirus pandemic, the CBI head added.
Statistics show that Iran’s economic growth excluding oil export revenues in the first quarter of this year stood at -0.6 percent, while including oil incomes it was -2.8%, Hemmati said.
Posting a negative economic growth, compared to that of the same period last year, in the current year is natural and due to the pressure of sanctions and a decline in global oil demand over the outbreak of COVID-19, he added.