Speaking in a televised interview Sunday night, the newly-appointed CBI governor, Abdolnaser Hemmati, discussed the country’s new foreign currency package which aims to reign in the currency rates and ease a dollar shortage in the face of US sanctions.
Hemmati stressed that Iran’s economic situation is “good”, given the positive balance of foreign currency. He advocated for giving the currency market more room to operate, seeing as “no problem has been caused to Iran’s economy.”
He said the main concern is for the price of basic and necessary goods, medicine and medical equipment, to remain unchanged; “the prices of basic goods will remain fixed by April 2019, and they will receive the 4,200 tomans/$1 currency rate,” he added.
He added that petrochemicals, steel, gas, gas condensates and petroleum products will act as currency suppliers in the secondary market, and the price of the dollar would be set according to market supply and demand.
The CBI chief stressed that the government will not interfere in the currency rate and will never announce a rate for foreign currency; “the free market will set the rate,” he added.
Hemmati also announced the government’s decision to allow currency exchange offices to freely engage in buying and selling foreign currency; “purchase and selling of up to 10,000 dollars is allowed. The government also permits anyone who can to import gold,” he added.
He said if the petrochemical exports continue as they are, Iran will gain as much as $40 billion this year.
Hemmati then said “good decisions” on the use of financial markets will be announced within the next two weeks.
He also added that people will no longer receive the 4,200 tomans/$1 currency for their trips abroad.
“We will have a serious session with exporters and currency exchange offices on Monday and put the new currency package into effect on Tuesday,” he said.
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