Govt. puts priority on people’s livelihood during sanctions: CBI governor

TEHRAN TIMES– Speaking on the national television on Saturday, Abdolnaser Hemmati mentioned the economic pressures that the unjust U.S. sanctions have imposed on the country, saying “Tramp has sought to devalue our currency and cripple the economy with the pressures that are mostly focused on the foreign exchange market which is also directly affected by the country’s oil revenues.”
The official referred to the exchange rate as a macroeconomic variable, stating that whenever there was an increase in the exchange rate, accompanied by inflation, the result was mirrored in people's livelihood.
“It is worth mentioning that most of this economic pressure is coming to the lower classes of the society, and unfortunately, those who have better financial conditions, get even better as the inflation grows, because the impacts of inflation on the prosperous circle of the society would always be positive,” he added.
According to Hemmati, the rises in the exchange rate would cause the greatest damages to the government and then to people, so the government has no role in raising the exchange rate.
“We promise to strengthen the value of the national currency, the situation is improving and the recovery can be felt. This situation will also pass. In fact, the central bank is trying to prohibit arbitrage in the foreign exchange market and prevent it from trading in the black market”, the official said.
Mentioning ISTEX, the governor said,” It will be useless unless practical steps are taken for implementation and realization of this mechanism.”
“Of course we are not just eyeing Europeans to help us pass through the current situation,” he added.
He further mentioned Russia’s recent proposal for helping Iran with oil sales and said “Along with the Europeans, Russia has also proposed trade cooperation with Iran, and we are also inclined to trade with them because Russia can supply many of our needs by purchasing our oil.”
Last week, the CBI governor said that three plans have been developed aimed to compensate the probable budget deficit resulted from the U.S. sanctions on the country’s oil industry.
“Trying to use different ways to export more oil, issuing government bonds, and using the reserves of the National Development Fund (NDF) are the plans the government is to implement in order to counter the U.S. sanctions’ economic pressure,” Hemmati wrote in an Instagram post.
“Even though the central bank is going through a difficult period, I’m very hopeful about overcoming the problems with the mentioned plans in progress,” he noted.
In early May, Hemmati had outlined CBI plans for neutralizing or relieving the impact of U.S. sanctions on the country’s economy.