The Central Bank of Iran will inject foreign exchange into the market in the coming days, the head of CBI's Export Department said late Sunday warning companies not to bank on higher rates for hard currencies.
"The CBI can easily manage the supply of foreign exchange into the market after the nuclear sanctions are lifted, as more foreign investments would be attracted and international banking operations would become less costly," the CBI website quoted Samad Karimi as saying.
He noted that currently there is no valid reason for the behavior of the forex market and that the recent fluctuations in currency rates "are transient and triggered by sporadic speculation."
The US dollar gained significantly against the rial this week by crossing the psychological level of 36,000 rials for the first time in more than a year. The rally has baffled market observers as the prospect of sanctions relief was expected to improve the value of the flagging rial -- something that has eluded manufactures and exporters.
"The central bank has been monitoring the foreign exchange market after the country signed the nuclear agreement with the six world powers in July," Karimi said. Transitory factors will lose momentum by the time the sanctions are eased and the forex market would stabilize, he said, echoing the pattern of promises of former government officials in a different context that never saw the light of day.
Karimi said that some banks were already connected to the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication SWIFT, and by reestablishment of banks' correspondent relations the country would have access to other international payment systems like credit lines and LCs.
The CBI if of the opinion that "banks will be able to set up correspondent banks in other countries as both commercial and specialized banks."
