Offshore rial to be launched in months: CBI
Offshore rial will become operational within the next few months to help economic activists to do their transactions with any country in the national currency, announced the deputy governor of the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) for international relations affairs.
The offshore rial will be launched in neighboring Iraq and Afghanistan due to the extensive social relations and also the Russian Federation due to the finalization of a bilateral monetary pact, Mohsen Karimi said, reported Tasnim News Agency.
Since Iran has extensive trade and social relations with Iraq and Afghanistan, the Central Bank of Iran has designed a new mechanism for enhancing bilateral trade and economic activity, he added.
The offshore rial will facilitate the trade exchanges for domestic traders and businesspersons, Karimi emphasized, noting that both importers and exporters will exchange their products in rial.
The feasibility studies for the launch of this plan started six months ago and it is hoped that this comprehensive plan will become operational within the next few months, the deputy CBI said.
Earlier, CBI Governor Mohammadreza Farzin had said that the country is scheduled to finalize a plan for using offshore rial in exchanges with several neighboring countries by the end of the current Iranian calendar year (to end March 20, 2024).
Farzin said that this mechanism has been devised for the settlement of exchanges of goods and services which will facilitate trade with countries like Afghanistan and Iraq.
The CBI chief added that offshore currencies are among the tools used by some countries to give a boost to the use of their national currencies in trade and help manage their forex reserves.