TEHRAN- The assistant to the Governor of the Central Bank in forex affairs announced an improvement in the process of returning export earnings and said: With the reforms carried out, more than $1.5 billion in export foreign currency has returned to the country.

According to IRNA from the Central Bank, Mehdi Darabi explained the bank’s most important measures to facilitate exports and imports and said: These measures have led to an improvement in the return of export foreign currency, the creation of an excess supply of foreign currency in the Central Bank’s systems, and a reduction in the bureaucracy of supplying foreign currency to importers.

Referring to the reform of forex policies in Dey (January-February) he said: These reforms improved the return of export foreign currency, and we even faced an excess supply of foreign currency in the Central Bank’s systems.

Darabi described the second measure as the possibility of returning foreign currency in cash form and added: Previously, exporters could not return foreign currency in the form of banknote imports into the country, but the Central Bank created this possibility, and in the very first months, more than $1.5 billion in foreign currency returned in this way.

The assistant to the Governor of the Central Bank also referred to the possibility of direct transactions between importer and exporter under Article 11 of the Seventh Development Plan Law and said: This measure caused foreign exchange transactions between importer and exporter, which previously were below $1 million per day, to reach more than $50 million per day. The result of this measure is that the importer can supply the foreign currency needed for raw materials and production goods within one day and without an allocation queue.

According to Darabi, previously the exporter could not sell its foreign currency to the bank, and the process of transferring foreign currency to the importer involved lengthy bureaucracy, but now the exporter sells foreign currency to the bank, and the bank is obliged to sell it to the importer; the Central Bank also supervises this process.

Continuing, referring to the possibility of selling cash foreign currency to banks, he stated: Previously, the return of cash foreign currency was limited, and the exporter had to sell it for service uses or to the Central Bank, but now the possibility of selling cash to banks has been created, and banks can use that same foreign currency for imports.

In the end, Darabi announced the Central Bank’s initiative in reforming regulations and said: The Central Bank is advancing corrective regulations in the field of exports and imports in the Government Economic Committee and with the cooperation of ministries and the private sector, so that both the import process and the export process and the return of export foreign currency are facilitated.

EF/MA