BAKU, Azerbaijan, April 7. Iran’s imports of essential goods under the NIMA exchange rate (the exchange rate created for exporters to sell a portion of their export earnings to banks) increased by 24 percent in value and 25 percent in volume, over the last Iranian year (March 21, 2021 through March 20, 2022), compared to the preceding Iranian year (March 20, 2020 through March 20, 2021), Deputy Director of Islamic Republic of Iran Customs Administration (IRICA) Foroud Asgari said, Trend reports citing the administration.
According to him, Iran imported 3.9 million tons of goods worth $4.4 billion under the NIMA exchange rate for the reporting period.
“Over last Iranian year, Iran imported 1.5 million tons of rice worth $1.3 billion, 1.2 million tons of raw sugar worth $544 million, 43,400 tons of equipment for the production of essential goods worth $402 million, 96,400 tons of truck tires worth $352 million, 223,000 tons of chemical fertilizers worth $168 million, 10,900 tons of pesticides or insecticides worth $109 million, 539 tons of veterinary drugs worth $57.9 million," Asgari said.
The deputy director added that Iran also imported 871,000 tons of various legumes, chicken, meat, eggs, tea and other goods worth $1.52 billion were imported to the country under the NIMA exchange rate during the reporting period.
In total (both via the official exchange rate and the NIMA system exchange rate), Iran imported 30.9 million tons of essential goods worth about $19.6 billion within last Iranian year, which is an increase of 60 percent in value and 32 percent in volume, compared to the same preceding Iranian year.
The Central Bank of Iran (CBI) has created a NIMA system in 2018 for exporters to sell a portion of their export earnings to banks to eliminate the shortage of foreign currency in the country for various reasons (sanctions, economic situation, etc.). In this system, exporters who earned more than 1 million euros from export a year must sell a portion of their export earnings to banks at the NIMA rate. Later, banks used to sell foreign currency to importers for the import of several products at this rate.
The Central Bank of Iran has not imposed rules on exporters that earned from export less than 1 million euros a year. Those with total exports of one to three million euros per year are required to offer 50 percent of their received foreign exchange from the government through the NIMA system.
The exporters with annual exports of three to 10 million euros are obliged to offer 70 percent. Those with exports of above 10 million euros per year must offer 90 percent of the received foreign exchange at NIMA.
NIMA is a system intended for the sale of a certain percentage of the foreign currency gained from export. The price of 1 euro in this system is 268,558 rials, and the price of $1 is 246,132 rials.
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