A new official price for the US dollar has been announced in an exchange market run by the Central Bank of Iran (CBI).
This is amid efforts by the government to control the prices and to make it easier for importers to access hard currency generated from exports.
The CBI said in a statement that the average price discovered for the purchase of the US dollar in its newly established Currency Market of Mutually-Agreed Prices was 596,470 rials at the end of the trade on Saturday.
It said that exporters had supplied some $39.5 million of their proceeds, from a total of $70 million, to importers at the new price.
The statement said the new price will determine the starting price of the next day’s trade in the same market.
That means the price will effectively become a benchmark for official currency prices in Iran in the coming days.
It comes after the CBI said in early November that it would launch a new currency market, where exporters and importers can directly negotiate and agree on prices, to replace an old market known as NIMA.
The CBI has a rate of 285,000 rials per US dollar which it applies to imports of basic goods, including medicine.
However, the lender has been using NIMA prices for earmarking currency to other importers.
The NIMA price was over 500,000 rials per US dollar just before the CBI announced the launch of the new market on November 6.
That comes as the market price of the US dollar was over 750,000 rials in Tehran on Saturday. (PressTV)
