Iran’s Parliament has announced its displeasure with the administration’s “unsatisfactory” explanations for recent fluctuations in the value of Iranian currency. Parliament said the government could have prevented the rial’s sudden fall through “timely interventions.”

Iranian media report that the head of Iran’s Central Bank and the Minister of Economy and Industry together with Minister of Mining and Commerce attended a parliamentary questioning session today regarding recent volatility in the currency market.

The session was scheduled for Saturday but had to be cancelled when the administration’s representatives failed to show up.

Hossein Sobhaninia told reporters that Parliament believes: “The administration lagged in its efforts to control gold and currency markets and failed to take adequate action to bring the market under control.”

The administration has tried to shift the blame onto the media for inflaming the market through “bad reports.” In recent weeks, Iran’s currency and gold markets have experienced a sudden rise in business following news of international sanctions against Iran’s Central Bank.

Iranian authorities insist, however, that the market fluctuations are not due to the sanctions.

Iran’s Central Bank has announced an increase in interest rates and has also issued a directive forbidding money-exchange services from selling foreign currencies at more than three to five percentage points higher than the Central Bank rate.

The dollar, which was trading at just over 1,000 toumans at this time last year, reached over 2200 toumans in recent weeks.

Source : Radio Zamaneh