Dollar Exchange Rate Surpasses 27,000 Tomans

After a relatively calm period in the foreign exchange market, the dollar exchange rate has been on an upward trajectory since around 24,500 tomans at the beginning of Tir month, reaching 27,100 tomans on Monday, August 16.

The dollar rate increased by 150 tomans on the current day compared to Sunday. At the beginning of the current month, the dollar rate was also below 25,000 tomans.

Iranian authorities have yet to announce the cause of the acceleration in exchange rate growth since the beginning of Tir month, but a report from August 7 by the country’s central treasury shows that only 2.5 percent of the oil revenues projected in the government budget were realized in the first two months of the current fiscal year.

Oil is the most important source of foreign currency for the country, but Iran faces both a significant decline in oil exports due to sanctions and difficulties in receiving and transferring foreign currency to the country.

Nevertheless, data from tanker tracking companies shows that Iran’s average daily oil exports in the first half of the current calendar year reached 650,000 barrels, more than double the average last year.

Iran included daily exports of 2.3 million barrels of oil in the current year’s budget, and accordingly, more than one-quarter of this figure has been realized in practice. On the other hand, the oil price in this year’s budget was set at 40 dollars per barrel, but in the first two months of the current year, this figure was above 60 dollars.

Thus, it is not precisely clear why only 2.5 percent of the oil budget was realized in Farvardin and Ordibehesht of this year, when this figure should be at least 35 percent.

The dollar rate at the beginning of last year was 16,000 tomans, but in the fall last year it peaked at around 32,000 tomans. With a significant injection of dollars by the Central Bank into the market during a period of time, the dollar rate experienced a downward trend with fluctuations for several months and even reached below 21,000 tomans in late spring of this year, but has again entered an upward trend.

Source: Radio Farda