Forex Rates and Gold Climb

EghtesadOnline: Foreign exchange rates made significant gains on Monday despite efforts by the Central Bank of Iran to meet demand through the secondary market.

News ID: ۷۵۱۱۳۱

29 September 2020

The US dollar rose 1.5% or 4,400 rials to 294,000 rials in Tehran's free market. The Euro jumped 1.76% touching an all-time high of 343,080 rials while the British pound sterling was quoted at 377,650 rials, 2.19% higher than Sunday's close, eghtesadnews.com reported.

Price of the Emirati dirham was almost unchanged at 80,000 rials. Traders apparently showed little interest in the dirham due to sufficient supply. News outlets reported Saturday that the CBI had injected 300 million dirhams in the secondary market, known by its local acronym, Nima.

Nima is an online platform affiliated to the Central Bank of Iran where exporters sell their overseas currency income and companies buy for importing goods, machinery, equipment and raw materials.

Samad Karimi, head of CBI's export department, reported a 77% increase in the number of deals in the secondary market in the month to Sep 22.

"Iran's oil export has been increasing in recent months and is expected to grow further…this along with an increase in repatriation of non-oil export revenues helped boost supply in the secondary market," ISNA quoted him as saying.

Karimi said the central bank expects the market to stabilize in the second half of the fiscal year. The CBI has undertaken a variety us measures to meet the forex needs of businesses, he added.

CBI Governor Abdolnasser Hemmati, last week talked about the need to maintain a balance in supply and demand in the key secondary market. Referring to efforts to bring back assets and reserves frozen overseas, Hemmati said the bank has taken measures to boost the secondary market.

Due to the tough economic sanctions imposed by the United States, Iran cannot access billions of dollars from oil and other non-oil exports.

Moneychangers affiliated to the CBI quoted the greenback and euro respectively at 288,500 rials and 335,500 rials.

Gold Rises

Gold coins prices also increased on Monday with the Emami coin sold for 133.8 million rials, up 0.6% compared to the day before.

The benchmark Bahar Azadi was worth 129.5 million rials, gaining 2.2 million rials compared to Sunday's close. Half and quarter Bahar Azadi gold coins gained close to 2.3% to be priced at 74.8 million rials and 44.5 million rials, respectively.

In world markets, gold eased on Monday as positive economic data from China boosted risk-sentiment, dimming the safe-haven metal’s allure, ahead of the first presidential election debate between Donald Trump, the US president, and his Democratic rival Joe Biden, Reuters reported.

Spot gold fell 0.1% to $1,858.55 per ounce by 1110 GMT. US gold futures were down 0.3% to $1,861.10.