DUBAI (Reuters) – Iran’s currency continued its decline on Saturday, hitting a new low against the U.S. dollar, amid uncertainties over Donald Trump’s impending arrival in the White House and tensions with the West over Iran’s nuclear program Tehran.
The rial fell to 756,000 per dollar on the unofficial market on Saturday, compared with 741,500 rials on Friday, according to Bonbast.com, which reports exchange rates. According to the website bazar360.com, the dollar was sold for about 755,000 rials.
Faced with an official inflation rate of around 35%, Iranians seeking safe havens for their savings have been buying dollars, other hard currencies, gold or cryptocurrencies, signaling further headwinds for the rial.
The dollar has appreciated against the rial since trading around 690,000 rials in early November amid concerns that Trump would reimpose his “maximum pressure” policy on Iran with tougher sanctions once introduced in January and would give Israel the power to attack Iranian nuclear sites.
Iran’s currency fell again after the board of governors of the UN nuclear agency IAEA adopted a European-proposed resolution against Tehran – raising the risk of new sanctions – and after the fall of Syrian President Bashar al Assad, a longtime ally of the Islamic State. Republic.
Trump in 2018 reneged on a nuclear deal struck by his predecessor Barack Obama in 2015 and reimposed relaxed US economic sanctions on Iran. The deal had limited Iran’s ability to enrich uranium, a process that can produce fissile material for nuclear weapons.
The Iranian rial has lost more than 90% of its value since sanctions were reimposed in 2018.
