TEHRAN, March 1 (Xinhua) -- All Iranian businesses are prohibited from registering their import orders using the U.S. dollar, Financial Tribune reported Thursday.
The policy was issued Wednesday by the Ministry of Industries, Mining and Trade and will not apply to registrations before the aforementioned date, the report said.
The policy was in line with an official request by the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) and was specifically meant to address the fluctuations in the dollar, the Press TV reported.
The move is not expected to create any major trouble for traders, said Mehdi Kasraeipour, CBI's director of foreign exchange rules and policies.
This was because of the low share of the dollar in Iran's trade activities, Kasraeipour said.
"It has been for a long time that Iran's banking sector cannot use the dollar as a result of the sanctions," he said.
Iranian traders should inform their foreign suppliers to change the base currency from the U.S. dollar to other currencies so that the relevant import documents can be proceeded at Iran's entry points, Kasraeipour said.
As of Wednesday, A new electronic system of the CBI for purchasing foreign currencies became operational on a wider scale.
The system offers all currencies to importers and exchangers, except for a handful that includes Japan's yen, South Korea's won and Thailand's baht.
