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Iran tightens measures to stem currency fall

Police threatened merchants who closed their shops in Teheran’s main bazaar and launched crackdowns on sidewalk money changers on Wednesday as part of a push to halt the plunge of Iran’s currency, which has shed more than a third its value in less than a week.

By (AP)

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Published: Wed 3 Oct 2012, 7:25 PM

Last updated: Tue 7 Apr 2015, 12:27 PM

The measures underscore the serious concern by officials facing one of the most potentially destabilizing scenarios, which has been partly blamed on the fallout from Western sanctions over Teheran’s nuclear program.

Public anger has mounted over a punishing combination of a falling currency and rising prices, which have put some staples such as chicken and lamb out of reach of many low-income Iranians.

The shrinking rial also has rekindled bitter internal political feuds between President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his powerful rivals, who claim the crisis has also been fed by misguided government monetary policies.

Iran’s currency hit a record low of 35,500 rials against the US dollar on Tuesday on the unofficial street trading rate, which is widely followed in Iran. It was about 24,000 to the dollar a week ago and close to 10,000 rials for $1 as recently as early 2011.

Exchange houses were closed on Wednesday and currency websites were blocked from providing updates.

In a potentially serious showdown, merchants appeared to stage widespread closures in Teheran’s bazaar, the traditional business hub in Iran’s capital. The sprawling bazaar has played a critical role in charting Iran’s political course — leading a revolt that wrung pro-democratic concession from the ruling monarchy more than a century ago and siding with the 1979 Islamic Revolution.