Iran’s Trade Promotion Organization has launched on online platform to enable exporters to enquire about their forex repatriation commitments.
“This would enable them to check how much [money] they have returned and what is outstanding,” Hamid Zadboum, head of TPO, was quoted as saying by the TPO website.
Apart from updates about the amounts, the platform provides information about repatriation methods, including selling forex in the form of hawala in the secondary market (known locally as Nima), export in lieu of import and selling currency to exchange bureaus affiliated to banks.
Nima is an online platform affiliated with the Central Bank of Iran where exporters sell their overseas income and companies buy for importing goods.
The new platform integrates data from TPO, CBI and the Islamic Republic of Iran Customs Administration, Zadboum said.
Exporters often complain about poor coordination between administrative bodies over forex repatriation issues and have called for an efficient online system to cut red tape and curb the bloated bureaucracy.
Dispute Over Details
The online platform is designed to improve transparency of the forex repatriation process. Export companies and the Iran Chamber of Commerce Industries Mines and Agriculture face hassles with the CBI regarding details about unmet forex commitments.
As per available TPO data, an estimated 24,000 export companies returned their foreign earnings from April 2018 to March 2021.
They were required to repatriate €62 billion in the three years but brought back €45 billion -- 73% of the total repatriation commitment and 63% of the total export revenue.
The TPO announced regulations in April that seemingly eased currency repatriation rules for the exporters. It announced a facilitative mechanism, the so-called “import in exchange for export” to reform rules for bringing back non-oil export revenue that had been a bone of contention between export firms and the CBI.
As per rules passed last October, exporters can use part of their earnings to import goods, raw material and machinery either for their own needs or for a third party under “currency barter between exporters and importers”.
Apart from boosting export earnings, the new measure seeks to help improve foreign trade that has taken a drubbing in recent years for a whole set of reasons, namely the US economic sanctions and prohibitive rise in currency rates.
New Controls
In related news, the customs office of Imam Khomeini International Airport announced that in incoming and outgoing passengers should declare their foreign currency on a newly-launched website.
Gholamreza Safari-Taheri, director of the office, said the website is designed in compliance with a decision by the Headquarters to Combat Smuggling of Goods and Foreign Exchange.
Passengers cannot carry more than €10,000 (or equivalent in other currencies). As per regulations, travelers need to declare currency valued over $10,000.
Travelers who leave the country by air can carry €5,000 or equivalent in other currencies. Those leaving the country through land, rail or sea routes are allowed to take out up to €2,000, which should be declared at the customs.
No official data is available regarding the volume of foreign currency smuggled in and out of Iran.
