Forex Subsidy Policy Stays, for Now

The government's plan to eliminate forex subsidies will not be implemented this month despite insistence from several quarters.
The subsidized foreign currency policy ($1=42,000 rials), which came into force during the second term of former president, Hassan Rouhani, is seen by many economic experts and the Raisi administration as a source of corruption and rent-seeking that lined the pockets of vested interests at the expense of the public.
President Ebrahim Raisi has expressed reservations about the highly controversial and costly policy of subsidizing the increasingly scarce foreign currency following the imposition of the economic blockade in 2018 by the former US president Donald Trump. However, with what exactly his government intends to replace that policy remains unclear.