BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 21
By Elnur Baghishov - Trend
The Central Bank of Iran (CBI) predicts that the economic situation will improve in the country, given the current situation, said Director General of the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) Abdul-Nasser Hemmati, Trend reports citing IRIB.
According to Hemmati, the Central Bank of Iran forecasts that inflation in Iran will not exceed 24 percent, if the price of crude oil reaches $30 and non-oil products are exported from the country.
Hemmati added that the goal is to keep inflation at around 22 percent in Iran.
The director said that at the same time, liquidity will be lower in this Iranian year (began March 20, 2020) compared to last Iranian year (from March 21, 2019 to March 20, 2020).
"The CBI put up for sale about $2.8 billion in currency for imports at the NIMA exchange rate over the past two months from March 20 to May 21, 2020, and about 1.8 billion of these funds have been bought by importers," he said.
Hemmati said that over the past two months, exporters have sold about $1 billion in currency to banks at the NIMA exchange rate.
The director general added that the exporters did not sell the remaining $20 billion in foreign currency to banks at the NIMA rate last Iranian year. The CBI gave exporters four months to complete the deal.
The liquidity in Iran has risen to 24.7 trillion rials (about $588 million) at present.
Iran's national currency experienced devaluation in summer of 2018. Thus, the price for $1 on the black market jumped from 35,000 rials to more than 200,000 rials. With the intervention of the Iranian government on the foreign exchange market, the US dollar has fallen to some extent. Thus, the government created NIMA exchange rate for exporters to sell a portion of their export earnings to banks.
According to the currency exchange rate of the Central Bank of Iran, $1 equals 42,000 rials and 1 euro equals 46,000 rials; at SANA rates, $1 equals 173,000 rials and 1 euro equals 187,000 rials; while at NIMA rates, $1 equals 153,000 rials and 1 euro equals 167,000 rials. On the black market $1 equals 172,000-175,000 rials and 1 euro equals 187,000-190,000 rials.
