Said Masan who is leading a trade delegation to Tehran in meeting with Shafei exchanged views for removing hurdles in way of trade between Iran and Oman and finding ways for enhancing trade exchanges between the two states.

He admitted that the trade relation between Iran and Oman is not in the level of their political relation, adding that both sides try to increase their trade relation at least to 50% of their political relation. He acknowledged there are some challenges in way of trade relation between Iran and Oman, adding that despite efforts of both sides, these challenges still exist like problem in transfer of money between the two states and central banks of both countries have raised some initiatives to overcome these challenges.

Pointing to signing MoU on cooperation in the trade field and easing customs affairs, Said Masan said that some executive and technical groups of both countries have been formed to operationalize these agreements and it has been decided the results of studies of these groups to be presented in the joint commission of both countries in upcoming months.

He added that Oman government emphasizes joint investment between the two countries especially by private investors of Iran and Oman and reiterated that there is readiness in all levels for political, economic and public support from these investments and Oman is ready to hand over its industrial zones to Iranian companies and offer any required facilities for them.

Said Masan then pointed to lack of enough trust from Iranian traders for investment in Oman, adding that Oman is ready to do anything to create this trust, adding that Muscat welcomes any joint investment in the field of medicines and production. He went on to say that Oman is ready to provide required conditions for Iranian traders to set up medicine production line in Oman and actually his country is ready for implementation of any joint agreement.

He stated that health tourism attracts many Omanis to Iran annually, adding that despite the high trust of Omanis to Iranian doctors, this issue needs more coordination to move forward properly for both sides.

He then pointed to the inauguration of new flights between big cities of Iran and Muscat and announced readiness of Oman for launching direct flight between Muscat and Isfahan.

Meanwhile Head of ICCIMA Mr. Shafei, for his part, said that despite the existing restrictions, the trend of trade between both country is positive, adding that although this year the trade exchange between Iran and Oman is growing by 50% and has reached $1.5b, at the same time despite the capacities for trade cooperation between the two countries, the current trade volume is not satisfactory.

He went on to say that due to favorable geographical location of Oman and economic advantages of trade between the two states, both countries can export their products to other countries especially to African states via Oman and both sides will benefit of it.

Shafei noted that there are high capacities for joint investment in tourism industry especially in health tourism for cooperation between the two states. He reiterated that ICCIMA in collaboration with Oman Chamber of Commerce have done great efforts for opening banking accounts for investment of Iranian traders in Oman and if these efforts bear fruit, it will play a key role in enhancing trade cooperation between Iran and Oman.

He also supported exchange of trade delegations between the two countries for knowing trade capacities of both countries, reiterating that exchange of information is important for trade delegations.

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The Islamic Republic’s gross official reserves are seen to increase by about $20 billion from $21.3 billion in 2021 to reach $41.4 billion in 2022, the IMF data showed.

The IMF put Iran’s foreign currency reserves at nearly $15 billion in 2019, a year after former U.S. President Donald Trump unleashed a “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran by imposing “toughest ever” sanctions.

It was a dramatic drop from the data in 2018 when Iran’s reserves stood at $122.5 billion.

The international financial institution blamed the nosedive on U.S. unilateral sanctions, which blocked Iran’s access to its funds overseas.

According to Tasnim, the decline deepened in 2020 to hit $12.4, the lowest in 18 years.

However, the slide was reversed in 2021, after the current government administration took office and the country managed to add approximately $8.9 billion to its ready-to-use deposit to reach $21.3 billion.

Tasnim attributed the jump in the country’s gross official reserves to the government of President Ebrahim Raisi’s active diplomacy to offset U.S. sanctions.

According to the Islamic Republic of Iran Customs Administration (IRICA), Iran’s non-oil trade surpassed $100 billion in the past 11 months, after Raisi took office in August last year. It showed a 31 percent increase compared to the previous corresponding period.

In the latest ranking of the world’s largest economies by IMF, Iran was ranked 20th and stands higher than many European countries such as Poland, the Netherlands, Argentina, Switzerland, Belgium, and Austria.

According to the international organization, the value of Iran’s gross domestic product (GDP) per capita when adjusted by PPP was $1.436 trillion in 2021.

Based on the IMF data, despite being subjected to harsh sanctions over the past few years Iran’s economy was reported to be larger than 173 countries in the mentioned year.

The International Monetary Fund has recently predicted that Iran’s GDP, based on purchasing power index, will increase by $137 billion in 2022 to $1.573 trillion.

The post Iran Accessible Forex Reserves Exceed $41b in 2022 appeared first on Iran News Daily.

Speaking at a presser, Sobhanian said that the economic growth of the country in the past decade (between 2022-2012) has been one percent and if we exclude last year, the economic growth has been 0.5%.

He went on to say that the per capita of the people in the past decade has nose-dived, adding that the per capita has declined by 32% which shows economic pressure on the people. He added that in the same period, capital in the field of machineries and construction has faced a downward trend and has been less than 8% of the schedule which has not been materialized.

He noted that in the past decade monetary base and liquidity growth rate has soared highly in a way that liquidity has increased from 639,000b tomans to 5 trillion tomans.

Sobhanian noted that in recent years the average inflation rate has been more than the past 30 years and if the reforming measure had not been taken, the country would have experienced higher rate.

On the fate of return of coupon to the market, he said that it has been delayed due to technical problem and the government will abide by the law and will implement it as the law has stipulated but the government is working carefully for its implementation in order to avoid problems and challenges for the people. He noted that scheme of using coupon will be implemented tentatively next month.

Sobhanian went on to say that the government is determined to control growth of liquidity and restoring monetary disciplinary and stability in the forex market. He added that one of the important tools of the government to control the inflation is to manage creation of money in the banking network and it is to increase its monitoring over the banking network.

He also added that the government is working hard on transparency in the monetary system of the country especially financial balance of banks and state companies, reiterating that the current government is working hard to eliminate golden signatures and bring justice for the businesses.

Sobhanian also noted that the government has increased the amount of loans and banking facilities as it has increased from 1300b tomans to 19,000b tomans in just one year and the number of banking facilities has increased during the current government.

He reiterated that the government is determined to bring justice to the tax system of the country and it is the first priority of the economic team of the government. He reiterated that the tax system od the country is being smartized  and over 8m commercial banking accounts have been identified during the current government which will be important for bringing the justice to the tax system of the country and loopholes for dodging tax payment will be closed.

The post Iranians’ Per Capita Declined by 32% in Last Decade appeared first on Iran News Daily.

The offering of the mentioned pair was officially started on Tuesday in a ceremony attended by Governor of Central Bank of Iran (CBI) Ali Saleh-Abadi, and CBI Deputy Governor Asghar Abolhasani.

Speaking at the ceremony, Abolhasani said launching this foreign currency pair was put on the agenda after President Ebrahim Raisi’s visit to Russia last year and the recent visit of the CBI governor to the country.

Iran needs to conclude bilateral and multilateral monetary agreements with the countries in the region, especially with neighboring countries, and Russia was the first country to do so, the official said.

A currency pair is the quotation of two different currencies, with the value of one currency being quoted against the other. The first listed currency of a currency pair is called the base currency, and the second currency is called the quote currency.

The post Iran’s Integrated Forex Market launches Ruble/Rial currency pair appeared first on Iran News Daily.

Speaking at the 31th^t Annual Seminar on Islamic Banking which kicked off in-presence and virtually yesterday, Komijani said that since last year some actions have been taken to provide required forex for purchase of COVID-19 vaccines and this trend has been accelerated in recent months and currently there is no problem for providing the required forex for the vaccines.

He then pointed to the Supreme Leader’s remarks in 2019 when he, in a statement, announced the Second Step of the Revolution and said the Leader in his statement pointed to some essential and important points to propel the country towards a big jihad for making Islamic Iran.

He said reliance on oil revenues, state-run economy and ignoring the domestic capacity with reliance on the overseas helps as well as unbalanced budgets have been of the major points that the Leader in his statement has mentioned as failures which should be amended.

Komijani then pointed to the advantages of the Islamic Banking which will lead to the pick-up in the economy and production as well as the joint cooperation. He then elaborated some actions of the Central Bank like buying the Islamic financial bonds which is used to meet the budget deficit of the government.

Touching upon the macro-economic developments in the country, he said that in the past three months the country has been under the cruelest of the U.S. and Europe, including banking sanctions, sanctions on the CBI, and foreign trade which decreased the oil revenues considerably.

Komijani went on to say that in the past years Majlis and government have taken some measures to confront sanctions, adding  but the pandemic pushed the economic growth towards negativity but last year the country had some acceptable achievements in the economy and its economic growth reached 2.5 percent and the figure was 3.5 percent with inclusion of oil revenues.

He added that liquidity rose by 39.5 percent in the last fiscal year while monetary base grew by 42 percent in the same period.

Komeijani also emphasized the significant role of the banking system in funding the government and realizing the budget bill income expectations, and said: “Last year, the Central Bank sold more than 1.26 quadrillion rials (about $30 billion) of Islamic bonds, of which about 51 percent were bought by banks and the rest by individuals and legal entities in the financial market; this provided a great opportunity to offset the budget deficit.”

“If this tool was not used, the budget deficit would have been met by the banks and that would have caused the monetary base to grow,” he said.

He expressed hope that the country would see economic growth this year and the World Bank statistics show that the world economic growth has minus 3.6 percent last year and major industrial countries have witnessed negative economic growth because of the pandemic.

Komijani noted that the CBI by using the new policy in the national banking system and national economy works to manage the liquidity and banking interest rate and improvement of balances of the banks is on the agenda of the CBI.

He said in recent days rial has gained against foreign currencies as a U.S. dollar which was trade for 280,000 rials last week is not traded for 260,000 tomans and it is expected the downward trend to continue in the upcoming days.

Further in the seminar, Khandouzi also delivered a speech in which he emphasized the need for implementing justice in the banking system.

The official also addressed the important issue of directing liquidity towards production and said: “Today, about 97 percent of money and liquidity is created by banks. So, the question that arises is whether this liquidity is directed toward the production sector and entrepreneurs through the credits provided by the banks or enters the non-productive sector? Do banks use their money-making power to build or to destroy the country’s economy?”

He further stressed the need for strict monitoring of the country’s banking system and said: “In the country’s banking system, the policy maker and the supervisor should not be the same. The policymaker must implement his policies and the supervisor should oversee these policies and their implementation.”

“Today, new technologies have made it possible for both bank managers and supervisors to monitor various banking processes. Technologies such as digital currency allow the central bank to prevent money laundering and tax evasion by controlling the flow of money in the country,” Khandouzi explained.

The two day seminar will be concluded today.

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The statement released on Thursday by CBI’s public relations office said that the IMF had sent an official email to the bank announcing that Iran’s gross international reserves had amounted to $115 billion in 2020, thereby correcting a previous estimate of only $4 billion.

The statement said that the IMF had admitted in the email that it had misjudged the situation around Iran’s foreign currency reserves by calculating the sheer amount of resources that are accessible to the country.

It said the email had come after the CBI launched an official protest to the IMF about the estimate.

CBI governor Abdolnasser Hemmati said earlier this week that the IMF had used flawed data and incorrect methodology to calculate the amount of Iran’s foreign reserves.

Hemmati had even suggested that the calculation could represent IMF’s biased approach toward Iran as the organization has refused to grant the country a loan it needs to tackle the coronavirus pandemic under alleged pressure from the US.

The IMF had explained in the footnotes of its recent Regional Economic Outlook report that the data about the amount of Iran’s gross international reserves had been amended so that they could represent the assets that are readily available to the country following the imposition of US sanctions in 2018.

Iran holds tens of billions worth of blocked reserves in banks in other countries where financial authorities say they are unable to process the funds within the US dollar system over fears they might face penalties by Washington.

CBI’s Thursday announcement said the bank would continue to press the IMF to fix other issues it has raised about the Regional Economic Outlook and its data on Iran.

The post IMF corrects estimate about Iran forex reserves: CBI appeared first on Iran News Daily.

IRAN NEWS ECONOMIC DESK

TEHRAN – Head of Iran-China Joint Chamber of Commerce Majid-Reza Hariri says in order to improve exports, Iran trade centers should be launched in countries as venues for barter of forex between exporters and importers.

In an interview, Hariri said that due to the sanctions, Coronavirus pandemic and closure of borders, national exports have been under excessive pressure. He added that as the statistics of the Customs Administration show, our forecast is that by the yearend our non-oil exports would decline between 35 to 40 percent comparing to last year.

He went on to say that some other factors should also be blamed for the drop in exports, adding that most of exports of the country is the raw material and the demand for raw material has dropped internationally.

Hariri who was speaking on the occasion of the national export day said that almost 60 to 70 percent of the country’s exports are petrochemicals, gas, condensates, metal and non-metal minerals that their prices have decreased globally.

He added that in the early months, the prices were falling sharply but gradually they are recovering, however, it is expected the country’s non-oil exports to fall by 35 to 40 percent this year.

Hariri noted that there are some fundamental problems in the country’s exports like exporting raw material which is the major exports of the country, adding that our exports are mainly bound to two markets of Iraq and Afghanistan.

He stated that the other problem which is related to our political interaction with the world is that if China, the UAE and Iraq are eliminated from the country’s list of destinations for export, 70 percent of exports will drop.

Hariri reiterated that almost Iran’s non-oil exports are restricted to five countries and this limitation of markets is a strategic danger for its foreign trade, adding that if one of these markets faces problem and suffers loss, our export will see a sharp drop.

He further said that he believes the country should launch trade centers in foreign countries for barter of forex between exporters and importers of the country. It means we should have Iranian companies in a certain country that they could deliver the forex of exporters for purchase to the Iranian importers, namely, we set up bartering forex fund, he reiterated.

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IRAN NEWS ECONOMIC DESK

TEHRAN – Chairman of Iran-China Joint Chamber of Commerce Majid-Reza Hariri says if Iran cannot double its current export level in the upcoming years, the country will face with foreign currency crisis.

Speaking to ILNA, Hariri said that currently the condition is in a way that the government can do nothing for two reasons, adding that the first reason is that sanctions have led to the slump in Iran’s oil revenues and the second reason is the coronavirus pandemic. He noted that the virus pandemic has affected non-oil exports comparing to the previous years, reiterating that even if the no-oil exports had not faced with slump, the country would still have faced with shortage of the forex.

Hariri noted that in those years that the country had good forex revenues, it used to sell oil worth $120b annually and it had non-oil export worth $30b which made the total revenues some $15b but in recent years and due to sanctions and the slump in the oil price, Iran’s oil revenues have considerably dropped.

On the probable forex revenues of the country this year, Hariri said that it is expected optimistically the country’s oil revenue to be around $5 and the statistics for the first half of the year show that the country’s non-oil exports would be around $30b while the figure was $40b last year.

Hariri added that so this year and at the best, the country would have forex revenues between 35b to $40b while the country in its most economized condition needs $50b.

He urged the country to continue the resilient and economized policies until the end of the year because country’s revenues and expenditures do not match.

He reiterated that if the country does not increase its exports and does not double it, it would face forex crisis.

Hariri noted that due to sanctions, the government is unable to do anything, adding that if the country puts behind this year with this condition, the next year the condition will be tougher.

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IRAN NEWS POLITICAL DESK

TEHRAN – Iran’s Central Bank Governor Abdolnaser Hemmati on Sunday said exporters who have not transferred their foreign currency earnings to the government FOREX system will be summoned for explanations.

In a note about the reasons for the drastic devaluation of the national currency, Hemmati said that the deadline for declaring foreign currencies received from exports was two weeks ago and cannot be extended. Hemmati threatened exporters with summons, in cooperation with the country’s Judiciary.

On Sunday Mohsen Zanganeh, a lawmaker and member of the Parliament’s Planning and Budget Committee, said exporters had kept $20 billion earned from exports outside the country. According to Zanganeh, exporters say they need the government to give them certain guarantees before they transfer the currencies back to Iran.

Exporters keep their money in foreign banks rather than transferring it back to the country because of lack of confidence due to Iran’s economic crisis and the huge devaluation of its currency.

The regulations introduced by the government require exporters to transfer the foreign currencies they receive from their customers to the newly introduced government FOREX system knows as Unified FOREX Transactions System (NIMA) where it would be used to meet the foreign currency needs of importers.

The government said the purpose of the new policy was to direct imports into legal channels, ensure sufficient and fair amount of foreign currencies to importers on a priority basis (essential commodities first) as well as prevention of hard currency smuggling and money laundering.

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