"How much is the dollar?" ... a question that preoccupies Iraqis after the killing of Soleimani

Al-Jazeera Net - Baghdad

Concern and fear dominated the people in Iraq after the Iraqi dinar depreciated against the dollar following the assassination of America more than a week ago, the Iranian Quds Force Commander Qassem Soleimani and the deputy head of the Popular Mobilization Committee, Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis, and fears of a war between America and Iran on the Iraqi scene.

And the last days witnessed a great demand for buying the dollar for fear of the collapse of the Iraqi currency, especially after the threat of US President Donald Trump a few days ago to impose economic sanctions on Iraq if the latter insisted on demanding the removal of American forces.

A source in the Central Bank of Iraq told Al-Jazeera Net that the bank was able to recover the value of the dinar after its decline during the past days, due to the reason for the decline due to the breakdown of official working hours in the past days and the tension in the Iraqi street, indicating that the central bank pumped through the window of selling the dollar during Three days 1.3 billion dollars on the market.

He stressed that the value of the dinar will return to normal within days, after the shock has been overcome by citizens, explaining that the central bank has sufficient funds from foreign exchange to meet the market need and maintain the dinar.

Import stopped
During the last days in which the dinar fell, most merchants stopped importing goods, which caused a slight increase in goods, with the increasing demand by citizens to buy food to store them for fear of imposing an economic blockade on Iraq, evoking the blockade that the country experienced in the nineties of the century. the past.

"I will lose 25 thousand dollars if I buy the goods now from Turkey, because the hundred dollars increased four thousand against the dinar," according to clothing dealer Adel Atwani, justifying not importing new goods.

Al-Atwani explained to Al-Jazeera Net that his purchases of goods are in dollars and are sold in dinars, and therefore the process of transferring money currently leads to a great loss, considering that stopping work is much better, indicating that exchange companies now, when you buy them from the dollar, will be worth 1245 dinars while they are buying the dollar The price is 1210 dinars, which is a very big difference. "

It is noteworthy that Iraq enters daily from the sale of oil, more than two hundred million dollars, while the central bank sells the dollar in the window of currency sale five days a week, between 150 million dollars - three hundred million dollars per day, to cover the demand for the dollar before Merchants, money transfers and others.

Challenges
But Saad Al-Kilani - the owner of an exchange in the city of Fallujah - told Al-Jazeera Net that most exchange companies stopped working, because working in this circumstance required a great risk, indicating that the central bank's pumping of the dollar was to cover imports while there is a very small percentage that went to the market Local.

He noted that the coming days will witness a fluctuation in the exchange rate of the dollar, as a result of political and security conditions, while the financial and economic expert, Maytham Laibi, said in his talk to Al Jazeera Net that the Iraqi economy will face many challenges during the current year, as a result of developments in the region that will lead to increased demand for The dollar.

He stressed that the Central Bank of Iraq is currently working to restore stability to the economy by maintaining the value of the dinar, and not creating two prices for the dollar because of increased speculation and an increase in the demand for the dollar, noting that the central bank will keep the exchange rate as it has a good stock of the dollar.

Meanwhile, the professor of economics at the University of Basra, Nabil al-Marsoumi, told Al-Jazeera Net, "The decline of the dinar exchange rate against the dollar in recent times has not been linked to an economic crisis, but this decline has been linked to the state of panic linked to the developments in Iraq and the region."

He pointed out that most of the Iraqis transferred their savings from the dinar to the dollar, which created a strong demand for the dollar, which led to a rise in its price against the dinar, noting that large smuggling of the dollar takes place to Iran to cover the Iraqi merchants' imports of Iranian goods, due to the embargo imposed on the Iranian banking system and preventing it From dealing in dollars.