MNA – Central Bank of Iran’s forex market will be inaugurated later than the predetermined date i.e. August 12, 2019, an official from the central bank (CBI) said on Monday.

Informing that the decision has been made under the direct order of the governor of the CBI, the official added that performing the required experimental tests have been commenced.

In early January, Money and Credit Council (MCC), the highest banking policy-making body of CBI, approved establishment of an integrated forex market as the CBI aims to explore the real volume of demand and supply in the foreign currency market through a new mechanism.

While this mechanism is planned to organize the transactions in the forex market between the exchange shops, some also say that it may omit other exchange rates, including NIMA rate, gradually.

NIMA (Iran’s Forex Management Integrated System) has been launched in early July to allow the exporters of non-oil commodities to sell their foreign currency earnings to importers of consumer products.

On May 25, some news websites reported that NIMA will be omitted once the integrated forex market is launched, although CBI governor dismissed the news, saying that NIMA is a pivot of the foreign currency exchange and trade related activities in the country and it will not be omitted from the forex market at all.

While CBI does not support the idea of omitting NIMA, some are supportive of such an approach and say that an integrated forex market can replace NIMA.