Central Bank of Iran (CBI) Governor Abdolnasser Hemmati says the country earned less than $20 billion from crude exports in 2020 as sanctions imposed by the US continued to affect shipments.

In a Thursday post on his Instagram page, Hemmati said that Iran had a very restricted access to the funds generated from crude exports last year.

However, he said that limited access to the funds, which he said was half the amount of annual revenues derived from oil exports before 2018, had failed to inflict any serious damage to the Iranian economy.

The CBI chief expressed hope that Iran could restore calm to its exchange market in the upcoming months with more exports of oil and an anticipated easing of the US sanctions which many believe would be possible with a new administration in Washington which is set to take office later this month.

Iranian authorities have repeatedly dismissed claims that US sanctions have had a deep impact on the country’s economy while reiterating that a change of government in the US would not necessarily lead to better ties between Tehran and Washington.

Various reports have suggested that Iran has managed to find a way round the US sanctions by increasing its crude exports to levels above one million barrels per day (bpd) from lows of less than 0.5 million bpd seen in early 2019.

However, in his Thursday statement, Hemmati touched upon the certification of Joe Biden as the next US president by the Congress on Wednesday.

Without naming US President Donald Trump, the Iranian top banker described him as the number one enemy of the Iranian nation and said that riots that broke out in Washington a day earlier had marked a closure to Trump’s scandalous case.