Iran Central Bank to Adopt Open Market Policies within Weeks

TEHRAN TIMES- Hemmati said on Saturday that the CBI would start implementing its first round of OMO policies in late September, in line with efforts to have a better control on money supply in the country that could dampen high rates of inflation.
The OMO policies would be a first in the history of the CBI which previously relied on management of monetary aggregates to control the liquidity and interest rate.
“In the past, it was the monetary aggregates that mattered to the CBI and it continues to matter even now,” said Hemmati, adding, “However, the CBI seeks to control monetary aggregates through the open market operation.”
The remarks suggested that the CBI is serious to implement regulations approved in March by Iran’s Supreme Council on Money and Credit which allowed the central bank to start buying government-issued bonds to both settle government debts to the banks and to have a better control on the burgeoning liquidity in the market.
Also on Saturday, Hemmati said that Tehran’s policies have fruited good results and the country is now enjoying a stable economy 16 months after US President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew Washington from the nuclear deal and later imposed tough sanctions against the Islamic Republic.
Addressing the 30th edition of Islamic Banking Conference in Tehran on Saturday, Hemmati said that as a result of the proper policies that the CBI adopted in monetary and foreign currency fields, the situation of the country’s economy is returning to normal despite being under the most unprecedented sanctions.
“Thanks God, we are witnessing the return of stability to the country's economy, the basis of which is the stability of the foreign currency market which has witnessed a gradual decline in the prices in the recent months,” the CBI governor said.
Hemmati also said that the inflation rate is losing momentum as a result of the declining prices in the forex market.
He further described liquidity management and helping the production sector as two major goals of the CBI, adding that the 5.6% increase in the present of industrial companies on the exchange market shows a gradual improvement in producing industrial products.
Last week, The Statistical Center of Iran (SCI) announced that inflation rate has declined by 6.4 percent, adding that it is the first such decline after 16 months of turbulence since the US unilaterally exited the nuclear deal between 5+1 and Tehran.
Washington’s unilateral sanctions against Tehran began in November 2018, five months after US President Donald Trump withdrew from an international deal on Iran’s nuclear program.
Claiming that the bans were working properly, Trump tightened them in May, only to see that Iran was finding new solutions to recoup the losses.