Tehran, Iran, Oct.17
Trend:
There are different way to return the revenues earned in foreign currency to NIMA system in Iran, and exporters are not forced to physically transfer the currency to the government, Deputy Minister of Industry, Mine and Trade and Head of Trade Promotion Organization of Iran (TPOI) Mojtaba Khosrotaj told Trend.
"Exporters who sell their currency in the NIMA system can transfer their currency credit which is in the buyer's account or exporter account abroad, to exchange traders, importers or NIMA system. So there are various ways to return the export currency," Khosrotaj said.
The integrated Iranian FX platform, aka "NIMA", aims to facilitate the currency trades for market participants.
In August, the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) introduced a secondary market known by its Persian acronym NIMA.
Exporters — including petrochemical companies — of commodities categorized as "non-oil products" are supposed to offer foreign currency generated from exports in NIMA for importers to buy at mutually agreed rates. Before the test launch of NIMA, petrochemical companies had to sell their foreign currency earnings to the Central Bank at the official exchange rate.
NIMA was established to give the CBI a chance to track the flow of foreign currency among exporters, importers, banks and trading offices.
"Sanctions cannot interrupt our relationship with the world, but increase the costs. We learned how to circumvent sanctions over the years, but it costs," he said.
"If you ask Governor of Arvand free zone (a zone that surrounds Khorramshahr, Abadan, and Minoo Island along the Arvand waterway in Iran) about the economic situation, you will see he is quite satisfied, because Iraqis go there every day and buy their daily needs, which are mostly subsidized goods, and the market has flourished, but the central bank do not like this.”
"We need to come up with plenty of circulars, because this is the nature of the multi-currency exchange system, which requires constant monitoring and policy change," he said.