Iranian parliament votes to investigate into Central Bank performance

Azerbaijan, Baku, Jan.20 /Trend F.Milad‎‏/

Iranian parliament (Majlis) approved a bill to carry out investigations into the Central Bank of Iran's performance in the past 2 years.

171 lawmakers voted in favor of the bill, 36 voted against, and 21 abstained.

The investigations would focus on the CBI's role in controlling the foreign exchange market from the beginning of the previous Iranian calendar year (March 20,2011) until now.

CBI has been under fire over the sharp rise in the price of US dollar.

The price of dollar was about 10,440 rials at the beginning of 2011, but it reached 12,500 rials in October 2012. After that the foreign exchange market became unstable and the price of dollar climbed to near 40,000 rials in October 2012.

Critics believe that Iranian government is not controlling the price of dollar at the free market on purpose. They claim that the government wants to take advantage of selling dollar at the free market in order to compensate its lack of budget.

The government maintains an official reference rate of 12,260 rials to the dollar, but only a limited amount of foreign exchange is available at this rate.

Iranian government launched the foreign exchange center in September, 2012 in order to control the free market's prices. The plan initially worked, but the prices increased once again gradually.

U.S. Dollar was sold at the price of 24,558 rials at Iran's forex center on Sunday. It is while dollar was traded at the price of 33,600 at the free market.

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