The Iranian currency hit a record low on September 9 with street traders offering the dollar at 24,430 rials.

According to ISNA, only yesterday the rate was at 22,280 rials to a dollar.

The Associated Press reported a seven-percent fall in the Iranian currency market, saying the decline was symptomatic of the Western sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

Meanwhile, the head of Iran’s Central Bank, Mahmoud Bahmani, said last week that the currency will rise to 15,000 rials for the dollar.

Bahmani said, however, that while the Central Bank cannot keep the value of foreign currency exchange down, it can influence it. He claimed that Iran’s foreign currency reserves have risen by 211 percent in recent years, achieving a liquidity of 3,875 billion rials.

The rial began its freefall last December, when international sanctions were laid against Iran’s financial sector.

The government has tried to control the rate by injecting the market with foreign currencies and had some success earlier pushing the dollar below 20,000 rials. However, as further sanctions on Iranian oil and the insuring of Iranian oil shipments have kicked in, the currency market has once again become tempestuous.

The Central Bank still holds to the rate of 12,260 rials to the dollar, which is offered for special purposes such as importing food and medicine.

Ahmad Tavakoli, an Iranian MP and critic of the Ahmadinejad administration, accused the government on Sunday in Parliament of stopping flow of foreign currency into the market.

“In the past two weeks, the Central Bank has stopped providing foreign currency for the market, and this has delivered 11 billion toumans (110 billion rials) from the pockets of our people into specific pockets,” Tavakoli said, according to ISNA.

Source: Radio Zamaneh