Bracing for US sanctions, Iran lifts ban on exchange offices

With the Trump administration set to re-impose some sanctions on Iran today, the country’s Central Bank lifts a ban on exchange offices, allowing them to resume work in a move aimed at bringing in badly needed hard currencies.

The bank also gives the green light for Iranian “legal institutions and businesses” to bring gold and foreign currency into Iran, according to the governor, Abdolnasser Hemmati.

A first set of US sanctions that had been eased by the Obama administration under the terms of the landmark 2015 Iran nuclear deal will take effect again today, following President Donald Trump’s decision in May to withdraw from the accord.

Those sanctions target Iran’s automotive sector as well as gold and other key metals. Renewed sanctions targeting Iran’s oil industry and banking sector will resume on November 4.

Hemmati had told state TV late on Sunday that “money exchangers are allowed to sell and buy foreign currencies” once again, to help Iranians get better access to “services and travel abroad.”

The official exchange rate of the national currency, the rial, will remain at 42,000 rials to the dollar for vital imports such as medicine and food, he adds.

The decision goes into effect tomorrow. Hemmati says the Central Bank will try “not to intervene in deciding on the price” of foreign currencies.

— AP