Shafaq News / The economic expert and former director-general at the Central Bank of Iraq (CBI), Mahmoud Dagher, revealed today, Tuesday, that the rise in the dollar is attributed to currency smuggled to sanctioned entities.
Dagher stated that "there is no dollar crisis; rather, it is a crisis of cash dollars leaking to cover trade with sanctioned entities. This represents less than 10% of CBI's sales. The dollar remains stable in financing Iraq's imports at 1,320 IQD per dollar."
He added that "the cash liquidity problem does not represent a significant volume, so the demand for it is for the purpose of continuing imports from sanctioned entities. This is a mistake committed by these traders, and they should bear the price increase."
He pointed out that "the impoverished Iraqi citizen has no connection to the dollar because inflation is low, and individuals with salaries have no relation with the dollar. When they want to travel, for example, they have a card in which they place the required amounts, and they withdraw dollars for living and shopping purposes, so they do not need cash dollars."
He continued, "Those who need cash dollars are those who deal with sanctioned entities or speculators," noting that "they will continue to face the consequences of this increase until they abandon this type of trade or find another way to return to the right path."
He also mentioned that "CBI is not responsible for what happens to cash dollars; it is the speculators and importers dealing with sanctioned entities, and they constitute a small portion of the bank's total sales."
The dollar has been gradually rising against the Iraqi dinar in recent days, reaching 155,000 dinars per $100 on Tuesday morning at the Al-Kifah Stock Exchange.