TEHRAN – Iranian cabinet approved a bill proposed by Central Bank of Iran (CBI) for eliminating four zeroes from the national currency, IRNA reported.

The decision was made during a cabinet meeting on Wednesday, headed by President Hassan Rouhani.

According to the proposed bill, the national currency will change from Rial to Toman.

As reported, the decision was made in order to maintain the efficiency of the national currency and facilitate and restore the role of cash in domestic monetary transactions.

Reducing the costs of issuing banknotes and coins, as well as tackling the problems which people are facing in simple daily transactions, like counting and carrying large volumes of

banknotes and coins and finally eliminating coins from the country's economic exchange cycle, are some other goals mentioned for this decision.

The government first put forward the plan for shifting the national currency from Rial to Toman earlier in December 2016.

However, it decided to postpone implementation of currency reconversion policy in 2016 due to some reasons including the expressed concerns about the time unfitting economic conditions which would ignite inflation and economic instability.

The policy basically seeks to facilitate monetary transactions among the Iranians and match the currency being transcribed in official documents and banking bills (rial) with the one utilized in real daily lives of Iranians (Toman). 

Rial has practically been replaced by Toman in daily transactions as the result of the cumulative inflation over the recent years.    

EF/MA