BAKU, Azerbaijan, Nov. 9
By Elnur Baghishov – Trend:
About $144 million worth of currency was sold to banks in Iran on November 8 at the NIMA exchange rate (the exchange rate created for exporters to sell a portion of their export earnings to banks), Trend reports citing Central Bank of Iran.
According to the report, the average price of each dollar amounted to about 242,000 rials based on the volume of sold currency.
“Also, about $53 million worth of foreign currency was declared to the exchange offices for sale yesterday,” the report added.
The CBI noted this shows that there is no serious need for foreign currency banknotes on the Iranian market.
As reported, about $546 million worth of currency was sold to Iranian banks by exporters at the NIMA rate in past Iranian week (Oct. 29 - Nov. 4).
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.