Economist Ziad Al-Hashimi warned today, Sunday, against the continued pressures on the exchange rate of the Iraqi dinar against the dollar, attributing this to the rising demand for foreign currency, coinciding with declining dollar revenues and remittances.
Al-Hashimi said in a post on his Facebook account, which was followed by the "Video News Agency", that the increased reliance on treasury remittances discounts over the past months contributed to pumping additional amounts of dinars into the market, without a corresponding increase in the official supply of dollars.
He added that the decline in oil sales and the decrease in foreign remittances, along with the disruption of some trade routes and the rise in transportation and customs costs, led to an increase in the circulating dinar liquidity and, consequently, created additional demand for dollars.
He pointed out that the continuation of these factors, alongside regional changes and market anxiety, could keep the exchange rate under the influence of what he called the "crisis pricing" in the upcoming period, with limited tools available to the central bank to adjust the balance in the currency market.