CBI Will Continue to Crack Down on Unregulated Dollar Transactions: Top Officer

Shafaq News/ The Central Bank of Iraq (CBI) strives to curb unregulated US dollar transactions, a senior officer said on Wednesday, asserting the dinar's status as the nation's official currency.

"A class of small traders, bereft of the requisite privileges to engage with the platform, find themselves trading in the dollar, thus resorting to the parallel price mechanism," Mohammad Younis, the Deputy Director General of CBI's Investment Department, told Shafaq News Agency, "their activities are exerting undue pressure and forging an unnecessary demand for the greenback. In stark contrast, the lion's share of commercial enterprises operate within the platform, their transactions unfurling smoothly at the official rate."

Drawing back the curtain further on the administrative effort in buttressing the national currency, Younis said, "entities associated with the Iraqi Dinar Support Committee are in diligent collaboration with security agencies. Their objective is crystal clear: to implement the strategic instructions from the Cabinet and the Central Bank with a twofold aim - bolstering the Dinar and stabilizing the exchange rate. They also aim to decimate unofficial dealings, given the conspicuous absence of a prerequisite for dollar transactions within the Iraqi economy."

Adding a stern note of warning against the speculators in the dollar market, he stated, "those who engage in dollar speculation are breaking the law. Dealing with such perpetrators falls within the purview of the Iraqi judiciary."