A Member of the Chamber of Commerce: The Islamic Republic Faces a 'Shortage of Foreign Currency' Due to Inefficiency

A member of the Islamic Republic's 'Chamber of Commerce Representatives' announced that the government is facing a 'shortage of foreign currency' and that 'the statements of responsible officials regarding the management of foreign currency resources are a kind of pretense.' According to ILNA news agency, Hossein Salahvarzi, a member of the Chamber of Commerce, stated that the provision of a wide range of imported goods has 'encountered disruptions and we have now reached a point where even the raw materials and necessities required by production units are not being supplied.' He added that although 'the cause of this problem is the sanctions,' the government, the Ministry of Industry, Mine and Trade, and the Central Bank are trying to manage the available resources 'illegally' and 'find mechanisms that consume less currency in the country.' This member of the Chamber of Commerce emphasized: 'The prohibition currently imposed on tariff lines in the allocation of currency is illegal, but the government has done this and has freed the allocation of currency for a limited number of goods.' Regarding the government's inability to manage foreign currency resources, he added: 'In providing currency for even this limited number, they do not act competently, and since they cannot provide their currency, they create disruptions in imports every day by issuing new circulars and directives.' Salahvarzi, about the impact of this inefficiency on trade imports, stated: 'In this context, either no orders are registered, or if an order is registered, they do not allocate an eight-digit code to it, and those who have registered orders are not given currency.' In another report, Hossein Sadat Hosseini, head of the specialized commission for mobile phones and accessories at the Iranian Guild Chamber, regarding the 'halt of preferential currency for the import of various mobile phones,' said that the price of iPhones 'lacking NIMA currency, including the iPhone 13, which was previously around 38 million tomans, has increased to 53 million tomans.' This member of the Guild Chamber added: 'For about 150 days now, the NIMA currency allocated for importing phones cheaper than $600 has been halted.' He continued: 'For example, phones that previously cost around 8 million tomans have increased to about 11 million tomans.' Sadat Hosseini emphasized that if the customs amounts remain unchanged, 'we will witness prices much higher than the current prices.' The resistance of the Islamic Republic's officials to remove existing obstacles to take Iran off the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) blacklist is one of the problems that has put the Iranian economy in trouble. Alongside this issue, international sanctions imposed due to the lack of transparency in the Iranian government's nuclear program in recent decades have limited the Islamic Republic's access to foreign currency resources.