Tehran, Iran, April 24
By Kamyar Eghbalnejad – Trend:
A senior exporter of dried fruit has told Trend that the government’s new monetary policy has spelled trouble for the merchant.
Mohammad-Hassan Shamsfard, the head of Iranian association for dried fruit exporters, has said that under the new regulations the exporters are obliged to carry out currency transactions through the country’s banking system.
However, a number of international banks refrain from doing business with Iranian merchants which poses serious obstacles to exporting goods.
Iran’s First Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri unveiled on Monday an online system which enables the country’s exporters to sell hard currency they obtained from international trades to the country’s banking system.
The online system namely "NIMA" came amid the recent efforts to renovate Iran’s foreign currency system via managing domestic foreign currency market and reinforcing exports.
Following the recent currency fluctuations in the country which saw the greenback trading at 62,000 on the unregulated market (an increase of 20 percent within two days), the government decided to increase the official rate of the national currency, rial, against the US dollar, setting the official rate at 42,000 rials on April 12.
Eshaq Jahangiri earlier announced that the administration has ratified a 16-article instruction to address new policies to be applied in the foreign trade, including import regulations in free zones and some tax exemptions for exporters.
Under the new regulations, Iranian importers must officially register their purchase orders on Iran Trade Promotion Organization's official online platform. In the meantime, the importers are required to get their hard currency for trade exclusively from the banking system.
Mojtaba Khosrotaj, head of Trade Promotion Organization of Iran earlier announced that the country’s agricultural exports surpassed $4.9 billion during the first eight months of the last fiscal year (March 20-Nov. 22, 2017). The country exported $947 million worth of dried fruits in the mentioned period, 15 percent down year-on-year.