Financial Tribune - In its latest directive, the Central Bank of Iran, on Tuesday urged exporters to return their export earnings to "the country's economic cycle'' as their three-month deadline comes to an end.

The CBI had initially demanded that exporters bring their overseas earnings to the country on September 11 after the measure was approved by the High Economic Coordination Council of the Heads of Three Branches of Government (an ad-hoc body convened at the behest of Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei to fast-track economic decisions).

Under pressure from private companies and lawmakers, the CBI made some changes to its earlier directive on November 19, making an exemption for export earnings of up to �1 million from being sold on Nima (an online supervised forex platform created by the CBI for forex transactions.)

Exporters say that they do not have any objection to repatriating their currency earnings, but complain that the time limits and the compulsion to sell the currency via Nima (whose rates are much lower than in the open market) is a spanner in their works.