Baku, Azerbaijan, April 30
By Elnur Baghishov – Trend:
The abolition of the currency allocated for import at the official exchange rate by the Iranian government will eliminate “fake” exporters, said Mohsen Jalalpour, former head of Iran Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Mine and Agriculture, Trend reports referring to ISNA.
According to Jalalpour, the elimination of “fake” exporters and the abolition of trade cards will result in the development of Iranian exports.
At the same time, in order to avoid the fall in foreign currency prices and the illegal export of goods from the country, the current official exchange rate of the state for foreign currencies should be eliminated and a new single price should be determined for foreign currencies, Jalalpour said.
Noting that there are about 8,000 “real” exporters in Iran, Jalalpour added that there were just as many “non-real” exporters who entered the export market as there were “real” exporters last year (started March 21, 2018).
"Non-real exporters gave their Commercial ID Cards to others. Despite the foreign currency getting more expensive because of the revenues from exports not returning to the country, Iran’s export value decreased by 6 percent," he said.
Jalalpour added that, had the policies regarding exports not been implemented last year, Iranian exports would not have experienced a decline.
"We may conclude that real exporters left the market due to concerns regarding the ban on sales, and export markets were largely lost," he said.
Mentioning that the value of the products illegally exported from the country amounted to $10 billion last year, Jalalpour said that both the illegal import and export of products increased last year, and, in some cases, Iranian products were sold cheaper in foreign countries than in Iran.
According to the official exchange rate used for the import of some essential products, the price of $1 currently stands at 42,000 rials.
The SANA system, which is a system assigned by the Central Bank of Iran to the currency exchange offices, sets the price of $1 at 141,649 rials. As per NIMA, a system intended for the sale of a certain percentage of the foreign currency gained from the sale non-essential goods and export, the price of $1 is 95,326 rials.
In the black market, $1 is worth about 140,000-145,000 rials.