Iran says value of the dollar will come down

The head of the Central Bank of Iran (CBI), Abdol Nasser Hemmati, in a television interview on Saturday night, said the Majlis (parliament) has added 35000 billion Rials to the government's proposed budget bill.

Hemmati emphasized that the government wants to keep a tight rein on all expenditures, but the modified budget approved by the parliament has loosened the government's control over spending.

Commenting on the dollar exchange rate Hemmati said in the final days of the Iranian calendar year, with several negative news items such as FATF hitting the headlines, the dollar increased in value against the Rial, but the general trend is now downwards, and we expect the dollar to settle around 110000 Rials.  If it goes above this rate, it would not be worthwhile for those who import commodities and goods into the country.

Merger of banks leads to overhaul of the Banking system

Commenting on the merger of five banks, namely Ansar, Ghavameen, Mehr-e-Eghtesaad, Hekmat-e-Iranian, and credit institute Kowthar in the major Iranian bank, Sepah, Hemmati said the merger of all six banks into one will occur over the next few months, and probably in five months time the five smaller banks would all be merged and incorporated into Bank Sepah, one of Iran's major high-street banks. Hemmati said this would be a major event in the banking industry.

Commenting further, the head of the Central Bank (CBI) said all five banks have loans worth 1300 trillion Rials, and anyone who has received a loan from any of these five banks will simply carry on repaying loan installments as before , and there will be no change in the interest rate or repayment method associated with these loans.

Commenting on deposits, Hemmati said 24 million Iranians have deposited money in these five banks, worth a total of 2140 trillion Rials, and all depositors will receive the interest on their deposits as before, and there will be no change in either the method of payment or the interest rate associated with these deposits.

The head of the Central Bank (CBI) also said he is determined to reform Iran's banking system, making it more transparent.

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