The Latest from Iran (18 March): Relying on India
Sunday, March 18, 2012 at 10:29See also Iran Feature: Pushing Back with "Intelligence" Against the Drumbeats of War
The Latest from Iran (17 March): Ahmadinejad All-is-Well Alert
1755 GMT: Currency Watch. In an effective admission that it can no longer control the exchange rate, the Central Bank has said it will allow official vendors to buy and sell foreign currency at open-market rates.
In January, after the Iranian rial almost halved in value in four months, the Bank tried to imposed a single rate of 12260:1 for the Iranian Rial vs. the US dollar. Vendors were threatened with suspension and unofficial traders with arrest if they did not observed the official rate, while websites posting currency information were blocked.
The steps were ineffective, however, as vendors simply refused to trade US dollars and other currencies. The street-market rate soon reached 19000:1, around its current level.
“Licensed exchange houses are given permission to buy and sell foreign currencies and answer customers’ needs based on the mechanism of the market’s supply and demand,” the Bank said in a statement posted on its website this weekend.