Azerbaijan, Baku, July 3/Trend M. Moezzi
As Iran's economic difficulties become more worrisome, the Majlis' (parliament) Economic Committee is working on a three-tiered foreign currency exchange rate.
Arsalan Fathipour, the economic committee's chairman told Mehr news agency the new plan is being worked on by financial experts.
Right now Iran's officially set exchange rate of 12,260 rials to the dollar is about 7000 rials less than what the dollar costs in the free market. Yesterday, Mahmoud Bahmani who heads the Central Bank of Iran said the official rate wouldn't change even as he acknowledged the gap between the two rates is problematic.
Mr. Fathipour said his committee's proposal is designed to "prevent injecting liquidity into the market," "gather up liquidity from the market" and "create solutions for reducing the price of household essential goods".
The committee's proposal would divide merchandise into "basic goods," "intermediate goods" and "luxury goods". Imports of basic goods would be assigned the official exchange rate while things in the other categories will be assigned to still-to-be-decided rates.
Basic goods would include chicken and meat, intermediate goods would include factories' machinery, and luxury goods would include items like some cars.
Mr. Fathipour said if luxury goods were assigned 50,000 rials to the dollar exchange rate, there would be no problem because the priority is to provide for citizens' welfare and livelihoods, not import luxury cars.