TEHRAN - Iran’s deputy finance and economic affairs minister says the government has provisioned $14 billion of official-rate foreign currency in the next Iranian calendar year (March 2020-March 2021)’s budget bill for imports of basic goods, Mehr news agency reported on Wednesday.

Importers of rice, barley, corn, edible oils, oilseeds, and livestock feed, as well as medicines and a few other items, are going to receive the government support, according to Mohammad-Ali Dehqan Dehnavi.

“The government has identified these goods as the basic needs of the people and has decided to keep the prices of such items low in the market, so $14 billion of currency with official rates will be provided to the importers of these commodities next year,” Dehnavi said.

The official noted that the mentioned fund is, in fact, some sort of subsidy which the government pays to support people’s livelihood in the sanctions era.
Iranian government provides the country’s importers of basic goods with foreign currency at a lower exchange rate than the free market, through a domestic Forex Management Integrated System (locally known as NIMA).

Based on the latest reports by the Central Bank of Iran (CBI), NIMA supplied over €20 billion for imports of goods and services since it was launched in April 2018 up to October 2019.

NIMA, which seeks to boost transparency, create competitiveness among exchange shops and 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 the domestic forex market. It was inaugurated to allow exporters of non-oil commodities to sell their foreign currency earnings to importers of consumer products.

EF/MA