TEHRAN - Iran’s non-oil exporters injected €7.98 billion of their revenues into the Forex Management Integrated System, locally known as NIMA, during the first half of the current Iranian calendar year (March 21-September 22).

The figure has experienced a significant increase compared to the last year, in which a total of €11.309 billion was injected into the NIMA system during the whole year, IRNA reported. 
Such improvement is an indication of the Central Bank of Iran (CBI)’s success in controlling and stabilizing the currency market despite the new waves of sanctions which are mostly targeting the country’s banking system.
Iran provides foreign currency for the country’s exporters with significantly low exchange rates and the exporters are obliged to return the equivalent of the supplied fund in the form of foreign currency.
NIMA, which seeks to boost transparency, creates competitiveness among exchange shops and promotes a secure environment for traders, is a new chance for importers to supply their required foreign currency without specific problems and for exporters to re-inject their earned foreign currency to domestic forex market. It was inaugurated to allow exporters of non-oil commodities to sell their foreign currency earnings to importers of consumer products.
In mid-November last year, CBI issued the instructions on return details of the hard currency earned by exporters back to the domestic financial system.
The instructions, aimed to lead the export revenues from the non-oil exports back into the country’s economy through NIMA, mandate all the exporters of goods and services to guarantee bringing back to the country the foreign currency amount allocated to them by the government at lower prices than the free market.
In late May, CBI unveiled a new directive package to provide the country’s exporters with guidelines about how they should re-inject their foreign currency incomes into the country’s economy.
Based on the directive, for the petrochemical sector, the exporters should present at least 60 percent of their foreign currency incomes into the NIMA, and a maximum 10 percent could be injected into the financial system in the form of hard currency and the rest could be used for importing necessary goods.
As for other exporters, at least 50 percent of the total earnings should be presented at the NIMA system and a maximum 20 percent could be distributed in form of hard currency and the rest can be used for imports.
EF/MA