– Senior European diplomats have claimed that France and Germany stepped up for hosting Iran dedicated SPV after the rejections by Luxembourg and Austria. In the suggested structure, if France host that SPV then a German official would be as its manager and vice versa.
– The share of oil exports in Iran FX revenues has been reduced over the past few years which shows that the economy is now less dependent on oil sales. During the first 10 months of 2018, the share of oil exports reached below 48% of total FX revenues. This figure surpassed 80% decade. The dependence of Iran economy to oil exports heralds that the nation was successful in producing industrial goods to compensate for the reducing piece of the oil pie.
– After the devastating devaluation of Iranian Rial against foreign currencies, the nation’s money started a recovering trend with chaotic ups and downs. The unbelievable rates of more than 19,000 for USD/IRR plummeted to reasonable levels (circa 12,000) and went down even further during the past week (entering 11,000 band).
– Iranian Stock Exchanges (Iran Fara Bourse and Tehran Stock Exchange) stood tall in the ranking of the World Federation of Exchanges (WFE) in terms of performance for a period of 365 days ending September 2018. IFB & TSE has returned their investors’ handsome figures of 132% and 127% respectively during the said period and stood 1st and 2nd in the ranking between 72 international exchanges.
– Backing down from the zeroing Iran oil sales, the United States grants case exemptions to 8 nations with regards to their oil purchases from Iran just days away from sanctions snapback deadline. Apparently, India, Japan, South Korea, Iraq, China and Turkey are among this shortlist exempted from Iran Sanctions.
– After the preparation of proper grounds for offering Iranian oil on Iran Energy Exchange to the private sector with the aim of circling the US sanctions, today 280K barrels of Iranian crude has been sold on IRENEX at the price of USD 74.85 (PB). 20% of the deal amount shall be settled in IRR and the rest will be transferred at delivery with today’s SANA rate currency (USD/IRR 136,000). This was the first offering of NIOC on the exchange which accompanied by 4 buyers.
– Yesterday, the first VP of president Rouhani warned about the future of Iranian Pension Funds. According to stats, 100% of Armed Force Pension fund costs is supplied by the government, directly from the budget sources, while this figure for National Pension Fund is hovering around 70-80%. Donya-e-Eqtesad reviewed the global experience in this regard and advised the administration to take 4 precautionary measures just before the explosion:
– In their latest take against Iran Oil Exports, the secretary of US Treasury has announced that Iran oil buyers will be granted exemptions only if they agree to reduce their purchases more than previous level (20%) of 2013-15. Moreover, Steven Mnuchin told the press that the US is negotiating with SWIFT organization in order to cut Iran’s access to financial transactions. However, he accepted the fact that zeroing Iran oil exports in months after the sanction snapback is not viable.
– Reuters reports that IMF released its latest research on the global economy and of course Iran’s situation. According to news, IMF reduced Iran Economy growth rate to -1.5% for the year 2018 (previously was +4.4%!) and also predicted that Iran will face with an inflation rate of 29.6%. The unemployment rate would reach 12.8 as well which shows 1.1% growth.
– After the recent directive allowing Iran Central Bank to get involved with the nation’s FX market, now the cabinet members is to expand the scope of CBI activities even more to include not only FX policies but also monetary ones. Doing as such, the CBI has now granted 3 new instruments to balance the currency/monetary needs: