BAKU, Azerbaijan, Dec. 6
By Elnur Baghishov – Trend:
The Central Bank of Iran (CBI) has sold $36 billion worth of various currencies from the beginning of the current Iranian year (March 21, 2021) to December 6, Director General of the CBI Ali Salehabadi told reporters, Trend reports citing IRNA.
Salehabadi noted that $22.4 billion worth of foreign currency revenues from non-oil exports was sold to banks under the NIMA exchange rate within the mentioned period.
“By December 6, 2021, $11 billion has been provided for the import of strategically important products and medicine, as well as $1.5 billion for the import of COVID-19 vaccines,” he added.
The director general also pointed out that on December 5, 2021 alone about $237 million worth of various currencies were sold in Iran under the NIMA exchange rate. These funds were exchanged at an average of 234,000 rials per $1.
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.
According to the official exchange rate in Iran, $1 equals 42,000 Iranian rials and 1 euro equals 47,000 rials.
The SANA system is a system introduced by the Central Bank of Iran to the currency exchange offices, where the price of 1 euro is currently 307,000 rials, and the price of $1 is 271,000 rials.
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 currently 267,000 rials, and the price of $1 is 236,000 rials.
In Iran, the official exchange rate is used for the import of some essential products.
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