TEHRAN, Iran, June 8
Trend:
The Iranian Forex (FX) Currency Trader Association has issued a statement warning against any foreign bill exchange outside the NIMA system and against the sale and purchase of foreign currencies outside the Sana system.
The statement said that such transactions are illegal and will be pursued and fined according to the law, Trend reports citing IRNA.
NIMA is the Persian acronym for an online currency system launched by the Central Bank of the Islamic Republic of Iran (CBI) in April 2018. It's a market where Iranian exporters can sell their foreign currency earnings for Iranian rials. The NIMA exchange rate places a higher value on the rial than the open market rate.
The official exchange rate is 42,000 rials to $1. It is the rate which is subsidized by the government and it values the rial far above the open market rate. Currently, the official rate is only used to import essential goods.
The instructions, which aim to bring the export revenues from the non-oil exports back into the country’s economy through NIMA, mandate all the exporters of goods and services to guarantee the return of the foreign currency in the amount allocated to them by the government at lower prices than the free market, to the country.
Sana system is electronic monitoring system of the Central Bank of Iran developed to control transactions. It is accessible at sanarate.ir, a website that records daily forex trade from across the domestic exchange bureaus.