NIMA returns over €30b of export revenues to economy

June 20, 2020 - 14:16

TEHRAN - Iran’s domestic Forex Management Integrated System (locally known as NIMA) has managed to return over €30.075 billion of non-oil export revenues into the country’s economic cycle since it was launched in April 2018 up to June 19, 2020.

The system has also supplied €24.931 billion to the exporters of basic goods during the mentioned time span, IRNA reported.

As reported, Iranian exporters injected a total of €2.760 billion into Nima system since the beginning of the current Iranian calendar year (March 20) up to June 19, of which €1.742 billion was again provided for importers to supply basic goods.

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.

In late May 2019, CBI unveiled a directive package that provided the country’s exporters with guidelines about how they should re-inject their foreign currency incomes into the country’s economy.

Based on the new directive, for the petrochemical sector, the exporters should present at least 60 percent of their foreign currency incomes into 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 of 20 percent could be distributed in form of hard currency and the rest can be used for imports.

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 to bring back to the country the foreign currency amount allocated to them by the government at lower prices than the free market.

EF/MA