Coins crossed the 15 million mark; the dollar became 30,000 tomans

ISNA news agency reported from the Iranian gold market that on Thursday, October 1, the price of a full Bahar Azadi coin exceeded 15 million and 200 thousand tomans.

This figure represents an increase of 900,000 tomans compared to Wednesday.

Statistics from specialized gold price sites also show that the price of various coins in Iran's open market increased by 2 to 5.4 percent on Thursday.

Also, the price of the US dollar in the Iranian free market followed the Saudi trend again, breaking the record of 30,000 Tomans on the current day.

The selling price of the euro has also risen to 35,215 Tomans.

At the beginning of this solar year, the dollar price was 16,000 tomans, and in October last year, it was around 12,000 tomans.

Iranian officials, especially the head of the Central Bank, have been constantly talking about a "bubble in the foreign exchange market" and "unrealistic prices" in recent months, trying to discourage people from buying foreign exchange.

Since the beginning of this solar year, the dollar price has been constantly rising and reached over 25,000 Tomans in late August, but at the same time, the Central Bank injected nearly one billion dollars of foreign exchange, bringing the dollar price down to around 21,000 Tomans. However, after two weeks, the dollar resumed its upward trend and reached a historic record of 30,000 Tomans on Thursday.

It does not seem that the Iranian government can inject huge amounts of foreign exchange into the market every week to prevent the dollar from rising.

Abdolnaser Hemmati, the head of the Central Bank of Iran, has said that over the past 15 years, $18 billion in foreign exchange has been injected into the market every year.

Of course, during this period, Iran's trade balance was always positive, and the Islamic Republic had excess dollars to inject into the market.

Customs statistics show that in the first five months of this solar year, the country's total non-oil exports fell below $11 billion, a 40 percent drop compared to the same period last year, and the country's trade balance was negative.

The International Monetary Fund has also predicted that Iran's total oil, non-oil, and service exports this year will be $46 billion and the country's imports will be $64.6 billion. Thus, for the first time, the country's trade balance will be more than $18 billion in Iran's deficit, and the government is facing a challenge to inject foreign exchange into the market to artificially maintain the value of the rial.

The International Monetary Fund has predicted that the Islamic Republic's foreign exchange reserves will decrease by about $19 billion this year to $85 billion, and will fall to $69 billion next year.

Of course, a large part of these reserves are abroad and relate to Iran's oil revenues, which are blocked in foreign banks, including South Korea.

The price of the dollar at the beginning of the Islamic Revolution was 7 tomans; in other words, over the past 41 years, the dollar rate has increased 4,285 times against the rial.

The surge in the exchange rate in Iran comes as Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday of this week, citing informed sources, that the United States wants to sanction Iran's entire financial system and cut off its relations with the outside world.

Source: Radio Farda