BAKU, Azerbaijan, March 6. Some $128 million worth of various currencies were exchanged at the newly established Currency and Gold Exchange Center in Iran under the NIMA exchange rate, on March 5, 2023, Trend reports citing the Central Bank of Iran (CBI).
Meanwhile, a total of $374 million worth of foreign currency was put up for sale at the center under the NIMA rate on the mentioned day.
As reported, the Currency and Gold Exchange Center was launched operating in Iran on February 21, 2023, in order to prevent the sharp increase in the price of foreign currencies on the black market.
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.
In general, there are four exchange rates in Iran:
- The official exchange rate, where $1 equals 42,000 Iranian rials and 1 euro equals 44,653 rials. In Iran, the official exchange rate is used for the import of some essential products.
- SANA system is a system introduced by the Central Bank of Iran to the currency exchange offices, where the price of 1 euro is 413,734 rials, and the price of $1 is 389,708 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 302,571 rials, and the price of $1 is 285,000 rials.
- The black market, where $1 is worth about 503,000-506,000 rials, while 1 euro is worth about 535,000-538,000 rials.
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