Iraqi official: the dinar devaluation is due to foreign arrangements, not economic issues

Shafaq News/ International arrangements are behind the unstable exchange rate in Iraq, the financial advisor to PM Mazhar Muhammad Saleh told Shafaq News Agency.

Saleh explained that the devaluation of the dinar is not due to economic factors, but rather to foreign arrangements.

He deemed the exchange rate a “struggle” between private trade and international compliance, between the local market and global compliance” stressing that Iraq has a “strong economic arm.” So it can provide food and medicine at cheap prices.

The U.S. dollar (USD) exchange transactions against the Iraqi dinar (IQD) closed at a higher rate in the markets of Baghdad and Erbil today, Wednesday.

Shafaq News Agency correspondent said that the USD closed at a rate of 157500 IQD to 100 in al-Kifah and al-Harithiya Central Exchanges.

The selling and buying rates of the USD in Baghdad's parallel markets settled at 158000 and 157000 IQD to 100, respectively.

In Erbil, the USD selling and buying rates closed at 157000 and 156975 to 100.

Financial experts explained that the recent measures taken by U.S. authorities to tighten the channeling of dollars to Iran from Iraq had decreased the value of the Iraqi dinar on the black market, the member of the Iraqi Parliament.

To control the rate at the black market, the government has asked the CBI to take urgent steps to compensate for a dollar shortage in the local market and to help private banks strengthen their non-US dollars foreign currency reserves such as the Chinese yuan, the euro, the Emirati dirham, and the Jordanian dinar.

But these measures failed to strengthen the local currency.