The Money and Credit Council has ratified a new directive according to which gold importers will no longer need to guarantee that they will return the gold or bring back the equivalent cash in foreign currencies, said an observer member of the council on Wednesday.
The council – in charge of setting the monetary policy – met on Tuesday night to discuss how to ease bullion export regulations.
"The new decision is aimed at boosting the gold market, which is currently in a deep recession," said Mohammadreza Pour-Ebrahimi.
So far, gold exporters had to either guarantee that they would exchange their profit, which they earned in foreign currencies, at the central bank at an official exchange rate or undertake to import the same amount of the exported gold back to the country in a defined period.
For imports of the yellow metal, the directive requires that importers be given a one-year period to produce sub-products out of the bullions. Under the new directive, if the products are to be exported, the original importers need to pay the value added tax for them.
Pour-Ebrahimi believes the new regulation will help eliminate the current restrictions on the export of gold.
As far as value added tax and gold import tariffs are concerned, he said, the directive will also bring transparency to the tariff system.
The directive will be enforced as soon as the central bank officially issues the decision.
He also touched on a recent controversial decision by the central bank on whether the bank charges shopkeepers fees for using Point of sales (POS) terminals. The matter, according to Pour-Ebrahimi, will be discussed in the next meeting of the Money and Credit Council.
Several months ago, the CBI announced a decision to charge shopkeepers for transactions done via POS terminals. The decision was to be enforced as of October 23 but the bank retracted its decision after facing strong opposition from both the unions and the public, who feared the new fees would indirectly impose extra costs on them.
