According to the data from the Islamic Republic of Iran Customs Administration, gold, worth over $265 million, accounted for more than one percent of all Iranian imports during the five month period.
Both the Iranian state and private citizens appear to have been turning to gold recently, with the World Gold Council reporting in May that demand for gold coins and bars by Iranians had jumped dramatically, with investment soaring to 13 tons over the first months of 2023 – 26 percent more than the 10 ton five-year quarterly average, as citizens searched for solid stores of values amid inflation and sanctions-related pressures.
Iranian Trade Promotion Organization chief Mehdi Zeighami indicated that the bump in gold imports was related to eased regulations by the state late last year related to the return of export proceeds, which has led companies engaging in exports to import gold to pay their hard currency liabilities to Iran’s Central Bank.
“Imports of gold ingot are economical for businesses and we have tried to diversify methods used for repatriation of hard currency,” Zeighami explained, Sputnik reported.
The measures are a boon to the Iranian state, which has worked carefully to build up gold reserves and expand domestic extraction activities. This week, Ministry of Industry, Mines and Trade Department of Exploration Affairs director general Ebrahim Ali Molabeigi announced that the country discovered some 79 tons of untapped gold reserves worth $355 million in 2022 alone.
Iran has successfully used gold to deal with sanctions, using it in trade to avoid using dollars or becoming ensnared in Western financial institutions subjected to US and European sanctions and secondary restrictions. The country now has an estimated 340 tons in proven gold reserves, although exact data on gold held by the Central Bank are unknown.
Gold’s attractiveness as a store of value has climbed steadily over the decades, reaching close to $2,000 an ounce in public trading this week, amid inflation and uncertainty about the value of the dollar and other paper money, and the growing popularity of gold in countries’ international reserves after witnessing how reserves held in Western currencies can be frozen or transformed from a financial instrument into a weapon.
Speculation about the possible use of a gold-backed token of exchange by the BRICS bloc has served to further pique investor and government interest in the precious metal.
Earlier this year, Russian officials revealed that Moscow and Tehran were considering the use of a gold-backed ‘Persian Gulf token’ stablecoin. Financial experts said that idea, if realized could cause a potential “tectonic shift” in international finance, with serious implications not only for the dollar but for other fiat currencies around the world, since they could serve as “a very appealing safe haven alternative that cannot be weaponized against the owners and users of such tokens.”
MNA/PR