Baghdad, The Governor of the Central Bank of Iraq, Mustafa Ghaleb Mukheif, confirmed that the bank has taken a series of measures that enhance monetary stability and push for the return of exchange rates to normal, while he indicated that the bank has sufficient reserves until February 2024, “which is a very sufficient period to correct imbalances in the balance of payments in the event that Iraq’s imports are exposed to any imbalances.
“The dollar exchange rate crisis is a temporary crisis resulting from internal and external factors that coincided with the end of the year,” Mukheif said in a press statement, according to “Al-Jazeera Net”.
He added, “The Iraqi Central Bank has taken a series of measures that enhance monetary stability and push for the return of exchange rates to normal, including: allowing banks to participate in the window for buying and selling foreign currency to be used for external transfer, and working to facilitate procedures for obtaining dollars through banks, and facilitating Financing private sector trade and meeting the demand for foreign transfers by strengthening bank balances with their correspondents in other currencies.
He pointed out that “a series of measures to limit this crisis went to reduce the selling price of the dollar to the beneficiary (the card holder) who uses it while traveling or pays his purchases via the Internet at a price of 1465 dinars per dollar.”
He continued, “The monetary situation in Iraq is at its best, and there is no need for that crisis that has caused fears of public opinion, just as the situation in Iraq is much better than that of other countries.”
Mukheif indicated the repercussions of the increase in the reserves of the Central Bank of Iraq and its arrival to more than 97 billion dollars on the Iraqi economy, saying that “there are several repercussions, including: defending the national currency exchange rate against foreign currencies and maintaining coverage of imports for a period of more than 6 months, as the Central Bank has built a cover for imports for a period of more than 17 months at the end of the third quarter of 2022, meaning that the Central Bank has sufficient reserves until February 2024, which is a very sufficient period to correct imbalances in the balance of payments in the event that Iraq’s imports are exposed to any imbalances.
He continued, “The foreign reserves index to the money supply in the broad sense is high and reached 81%, which is an indicator that enhances confidence in the Iraqi dinar as a store of value, as well as preserving the value of the national currency by ensuring the stability of the exchange rate as a nominal stabilizer for inflation.”
He added, “There are other benefits that come from increasing the volume of reserves with the central bank, including: an indicator of the strength and flexibility of monetary policy, and the reserves can also contribute to raising the indicators of creditworthiness of Iraq with international rating institutions.”
The Governor of the Central Bank referred to the reasons for issuing a new denomination of the local currency, noting that “the issuance of the new denomination is a procedure to modify the structure of banknotes and introduce an intermediate denomination that facilitates daily transactions, reduce the presence of old versions of currency denominations in circulation, and adopt modern security specifications in designing the new denomination to reduce counterfeiting, especially since counterfeiting methods have developed thanks to technological development.”
Source: National Iraqi News Agency