Iran’s liquidity soared a stun-
ning 25 percent this past
year, while its deposits in foreign banks dropped 12 percent.
Liquidity surged a dramatic 25 percent from $165 billion in August 2008 to $206 billion in August 2009, the Central Bank announced last Wednesday. The Central Bank has been promising new efforts to restrict liquidity, a major factor in inflation.
Iran’s deposits in foreign banks stood at $77.8 billion as of August, the Central Bank said.
That total was a decline of 12 percent from the $88.5 billion reported by the Central Bank for the same month a year earlier. The bank gave no explanation for the steep drop, although the dramatic fall in the price of oil was the likely main contributor. The price of an OPEC barrel reached an all time high in July 2008 and had just started its drop when Iran reported $88.5 billion in foreign deposits.
The Central Bank gave the figures in dollars, despite the fact that the Ahmadi-nejad Administration long ago ordered that all foreign currency figures be cited in euros. That order has been largely ignored.
The Central Bank also announced that the government’s indebtedness to the Central Bank rose by 2 percent over the past year to about $13 billion.
But it said the debts of Iranian banks to the Central Bank fell by 5 percent from $20,8 billion in August 2008 to $19.7 billion in August 2009.
