BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 7. Iranian exporters have sold approximately $6.2 billion worth of various foreign currencies to the country’s banks under the NIMA exchange rate (the exchange rate created for exporters to sell a portion of their export earnings to banks), during the past 45 days (December 22, 2022 through February 4, 2023), Iranian Minister of Economic Affairs and Finance Ehsan Khandouzi said at a press conference in Tehran on February 7, 2023, Trend reports citing Mehr News Agency.
The minister noted that $1.2 billion worth of foreign currencies obtained from export of petroleum products, $1.7 billion from petrochemical products and $3.3 billion from other non-oil exports were sold to the banks under the NIMA exchange rate.
Khandouzi added that on average, each $1 dollar was exchanged at the NIMA exchange rate for 285,000 rials during 45 days.
“In addition, over $320 million worth of foreign currencies were exchanged in the Organized Foreign Exchange Market,” he said.
The Central Bank of Iran (CBI) created the 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 exporting less than 1 million euros a year.
Those with total exports of 1-3 million euros per year are required to offer 50 percent of their received foreign exchange from the government through the NIMA system.
The traders with annual exports of 3 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.
The price of 1 euro at NIMA is currently 305,509 rials, and the price of $1 is 285,000 rials.
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