Thousands of Iraqis demonstrated today, Wednesday, in front of the Central Bank of Iraq in Baghdad, to protest the speculations that the dollar exchange rate is witnessing in the country for the third month in a row.

The demonstrators - who were crowded with Al-Rasheed Street and Al-Rusafi Square in the vicinity of the Central Bank of Iraq - chanted slogans calling on the Iraqi Central Bank administration to work to control the exchange rate of the dollar at levels that do not reflect negatively on the prices of food commodities, which recorded a significant increase during the past months.

The protesters said that the continued depreciation of the dinar against the dollar left the citizen with additional burdens and caused confusion in the local market and a state of stagnation.

The Central Bank of Iraq announced a few weeks ago that it would take new measures, which it said aimed to protect the stability of the market, while the Iraqi Prime Minister, Muhammad Shia al-Sudani, announced two days ago that the governor of the Central Bank would be relieved of his post.

Iraq is experiencing a crisis of the high price of the dollar against the dinar. In the past weeks, the price of the dollar has recorded its highest level in many years, after reaching 1,700 Iraqi dinars per dollar.

The crisis dates back to December 2020, when the government of former Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kazemi announced a change in the exchange rate of the dollar from 1117 dinars to one dollar, to 1450 dinars, due to the decline in global oil prices.

and the beginning of 2022, and in light of the resurgence of oil prices in the global market;

The government has rejected calls to return the dinar to what it was.

At the beginning of this year, the Central Bank announced that the recent rise in the exchange rate resulted from measures aimed at protecting the banking sector.

On January 21, the Ministry of the Interior announced the arrest of those it described as manipulating the exchange rates of the dollar and those working to smuggle it and confuse the market.

Dealers in the foreign exchange market in Iraq are likely to continue the fluctuation wave in the stability of the foreign exchange market until the completion of the implementation of government measures on the movement of the US dollar, preventing its smuggling out of the country, and tightening control over imports from abroad.