TEHRAN – Supply of foreign currency by Iran’s Forex Management Integrated System, locally known as NIMA, in the week ended on May 13, increased by 48 percent compared to the previous week, IRNA reported.

According to the data released by Central Bank of Iran (CBI), during the mentioned seven days NIMA and CBI supplied €313 million of foreign currency for the imports of basic goods, while the demand for foreign currency by the importers stood at only €133 million.

Earlier, the governor of the Central Bank had said that, given the gradual revival of the country’s non-oil and oil exports following the partial containment of the coronavirus outbreak, the country’s foreign exchange market will return to normal conditions.

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 late May 2019, CBI unveiled a 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 domestic Forex Management Integrated System (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