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Iran postpones currency redenomination | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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A picture taken on September 30, 2012 shows an Iranian woman paying with a 20000 rial banknote, bearing a portrait of Iran’s late founder of islamic Republic Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, to a grocer in the Iranian capital Tehran. (AFP Photo/Atta Kenare)


A picture taken on September 30, 2012 shows an Iranian woman paying with a 20000 rial banknote, bearing a portrait of Iran's late founder of islamic Republic Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, to a grocer in the Iranian capital Tehran. (AFP Photo/Atta Kenare)

A picture taken on September 30, 2012 shows an Iranian woman paying with a 20000 rial banknote, bearing a portrait of Iran’s late founder of islamic Republic Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, to a grocer in the Iranian capital Tehran. (AFP Photo/Atta Kenare)

London, Asharq Al-Awsat—An Iranian central bank official says that Iran has once again delayed plans to revalue the Iranian riyal by eliminating some zeros from the country’s currency, although the option remains on the table.

“The issue will be included in the central bank’s serious agenda as soon as the economic situation has improved and the inflation reduced,” said Akbar Komijani, the Central Bank of Iran’s economic deputy, in an interview with the Mehr news agency published on Sunday.

He added that Iran’s central bank attaches great importance to the elimination of zeros from the currency, but it will not be considered as a priority, at least not during the next few months.

The secretary general of the central bank, Mahmoud Ahmadi, said last week that the eliminations of zeros from the country’s currency will be followed up in the second half of the next year of the Iranian calendar, which runs from October 2014 till March 2015.

Economic experts believe that the fate of plans—formed and presented during the previous government of President Ahmadinejad—to delete zeros from the Iranian currency is uncertain under the current government, in light of changes in the rial’s value.

Iran’s former economy minister Shamseddin Hosseini said in 2011 that the country was set to lop three zeros off the end of its currency, which has weakened steadily over many years, despite attempts to keep it loosely pegged to the US dollar. Iran “will remove three zeros from the national currency this year on the condition that the prerequisites [for doing so] are achieved,” the minister said.

The value of the dollar experienced a sharp decline in Iran in early 2012.

The Iranian rial currently stands at around 30,000 to the US dollar, compared to 10,000 two years ago.