BAKU, Azerbaijan, June 23
By Elnur Baghishov – Trend:
About 27.5 billion euros of foreign exchange have not been returned to the country's economy at the NIMA rate as of June 20, 2020, Samad Karimi, director of the Exports Office of the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) told IRIB, Trend reports.
Karimi noted that of this figure, about 25 billion euros were due by the end of last Iranian year (March 19, 2020), and 2.5 billion euros were to be returned in first three months of current Iranian year (from March 20, 2020 through June 20, 2020).
The director said that there are 19,167 exporters in Iran, and 16,435 of them (86 percent) must return 27.5 billion euros to the country's economy at the NIMA exchange rate.
According to him, about 14 percent of exporters, mainly petrochemical and steel products exporters, fulfill their obligations to return the export currency to the Iranian economy.
Karimi said that these exporters returned about 28.5 billion euros to the Iranian economy by the end of last Iranian year.
"As many as 250 people of the 16,435 exporters have not returned about 6.8 billion euros currency earnings from exports to the Iranian economy," he said.
The official added that in total, 30.7 billion euros have been sold at the NIMA exchange rate from July 2018 through June 20, 2020, and about 16.1 billion euros were sold at the NIMA exchange rate during last Iranian year (from March 21, 2019 to March 20, 2020).
Following the devaluation of national currency in 2018, the Central Bank of Iran introduced the sale of part of the currency earned from exports at the rate set by the NIMA system, taking into account the difference between the black market and the official exchange rates.
According to the currency exchange rate of the Central Bank of Iran, $1 equals 42,000 rials and 1 euro equals 47,000 rials; at SANA rates, $1 equals 189,000 rials and 1 euro equals 211,000 rials; while at NIMA rates, $1 equals 158,000 rials and 1 euro equals 184,000 rials.