Press TV - Governor of the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) Abdolnasser Hemmati says he is sure foreign currency prices will return to normal levels despite growing economic pressure on the country and a pandemic that has deeply affected the markets.


Iran’s rial closed at 175,000 against the US dollar on Monday, according to websites monitoring currency prices and reports from the unofficial market in downtown Tehran.

The marks a deep plunge for a national currency that had remained largely stable since hitting historic lows in the summer of 2018. The rial started to lose ground in March when the Iranian government announced lockdown measures to contain the new coronavirus disease.

Hemmati said a recent slump in the international oil markets has also affected foreign currency prices in Iran.

He said, however, that current situation in the forex market is not worse than what the country saw in August and September of 2018. The CBI governor vowed that the rial would gain the lost value to return to prices seen before the pandemic.

“As I said before the situation is difficult, but the trend is one of improving which can be managed and stability can be restored (to the markets),” said Hemmati in a post published on his Instagram page.

Iran has been under a series of tough economic sanctions imposed by the United States since November 2018 when the American administration withdrew from a nuclear deal signed between Tehran and world powers.

The sanctions have curbed Iran’s ability to export oil which was once a staple of government financing. However, experts believe the bans have opened up new opportunities for the country as the government seeks to diversify the economy away from oil incomes.