Iran’s frozen money stands at $40b; official
Deputy Head of Iran Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture (ICCIMA) says Iran’s frozen money in other countries stands at around $40b.
Speaking to ILNA news agency, Hossein Selahvarzi refuted allegations on the amount of the frozen money of Iran in the overseas banks and also allegations that exporters have not repatriated a major part of their earned forex to the country.
He said the amount of Iran’s frozen forex in foreign banks is around $40b, adding that the private sector has repatriated their forex earned from exports to the country and they have just failed in bringing back some $6b.
The Iranian official criticized the Central Bank and other officials who claim some $27b has not been repatriated to the country and called it a wrong figure. He added that the alleged figure belonged to 2018 and 2019.
Selahvarzi reiterated that in 2018 and 2019, the policies of the Central Bank were in a way that they could let exporters repatriate 70 percent of their forex.
“The forex resulted from the exports by the private sector which has not been repatriated stands at $6b and exporters are trying to repatriate it after resolving problems.”
He also criticized the Central Bank for saying that some of the exporters have been cardboard sleepers, saying that the bank is totally wrong.
“The Central Bank has no enough data bank and domination on the identities of the exporters, it gives wrong addresses,” he added.
Selahvarzi also criticized the wrong policies of the Central Bank especially in the past two years, saying that change of policies has created headaches for the exporters. He added that these policies have led to the emergence of novice and small exporters and currently the number of exporters in the country exceeds 20,000.
He said allocating dollar based on the government rate of 4200 tomans was a wrong decision which led to the emergence of new exporters and waste of the national forex.
Selahvarzi also reiterated the forex policy-maker is currently after ways to manage and increase the forex resources and since it cannot earn more money through sales of oil, it has focused on non-oil export revenues.
He also said that he has asked the Central Bank to reveal the names of those exporters who have not repatriated their forex which is said they have been cardboard sleepers.
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