Iran to launch Structured Currency Market in early August: CBI
The Central Bank of Iran (CBI) has announced that a long-anticipated initiative for launching a semi-official market that could positively impact currency exchanges in the country will take shape next month.
The CBI said in a statement on Saturday that the Structured Currency Market will open as of August 12, concurrent with a major religious festival, adding that the exchange mechanism would lead to more transparency in foreign currencies rates.
It said the decision came after a meeting between CBI governor Abdolnasser Hemmati and senior officials supervising the scheme.
Preparations for the launch of the market began earlier this year after the government ordered the CBI to formulate a system where major money exchangers, either official or unofficial, can buy their required currencies directly from the central bank.
The scheme seeks to influence the unofficial currency market by helping control the prices of major foreign currencies.
The government had hoped it could start the exchange system in March this year to prevent a further fall in the price of the Iranian rial against the US dollar.
However, the CBI announcement comes amid a slight rebound for the rial as the currency has regained around 13 percent of its value against the dollar since its surge began two weeks ago.
The rial closed at around 120,000 for each dollar on Saturday evening local time, up some 1,000 rials compared to the previous day. This comes as the currency traded at more than 135,000 against the greenback earlier this month.
Senior officials have repeatedly asserted that the government seeks no direct intervention in the currency market despite opposite claims saying that the CBI has been selling its foreign currencies to compensate for the income lost due to American sanctions on Iran’s oil export.
Chief banker Hemmati expressed hope on Saturday that the Structured Currency Market could help stabilize the prices of foreign currencies in a realistic way.
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