Tehran, Iran, July 30
Trend:
Iranian government plans to remove four zeros from national currency after solving other priorities in the economy, said a member of Monetary and Banking Research Institute.
Kamran Nadri discussed the plan, which was suddenly kept quiet after being publicized, in an interview with Trend.
"The plan is not suspended, but there are other priorities on the agenda on which the government is working," he noted. "The Central Bank of Iran has proposed the plan, which is currently being reviewed; however, it is not a priority in the economy."
"One of the necessary conditions to implement this plan is to control inflation. Otherwise, removing zeros will not solve any problems; moreover, the situation may cause both inflation and prices growth. Thus, we need a monetary reform first," he said referring to prerequisites for implementation the plan.
In his words, the monetary reform should take place after the inflation is curbed, while currently the inflation rate is high.
"The people have already 'removed' one zero from routine transactions and the monetary unit, which is unofficially used, is toman; therefore, there is no difficulty for deleting more zeros," he said.
"This step will be more effective, if taken after reforms in monetary and banking systems," he added.
Iran plans to reform its currency "rial" by removing four zeros from the monetary unit.The move was proposed by Central Bank of Iran as part of a broader plan to reform the monetary system.
The measure calls for fundamental changes to the national currency, including changing the name of the monetary unit from the official rial to the popularly used "toman."