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multiple desperate measures to rescue the country’s budget including completely suspending Visa cards; ending the era of discounted gas, water and electricity prices for citizens; making contributions to Turkmenistan’s Pension Fund by business owners mandatory from 1 January; and even imposing more fines on car owners and Turkmen fortune tellers, whose occult services are popular in Turkmenistan.
President Berdymuhamedov's trip to the Middle East secured a number of agreements, largely with the UAE. The
Kuwait part of the tour did not appear to bear much fruit.
Officially reported Turkmen growth
in 2017 stood at 6.5%, although the real state of the Turkmen economy is likely worse than in recent years, as continuous reports about the depleted Turkmen budget have shown. The impact of low oil prices has taken a damaging toll on the monetary value of Turkmenistan's gas and oil exports, while a row over historical debts with Iran shut off one gas export route. That left the country with China as its sole
major gas customer via a new pipeline, with Russia having stopped purchases of Turkmen gas in 2016.
A more optimistic assessment of Turkmenistan was lately issued by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Following an IMF visit to the country at the beginning of March, it said that Turkmen growth was “supported by rising natural gas exports, import substitution, and expansionary credit policies”.
Street corner traders disappear as Iranians try but fail to deal with unified exchange rate
bne IntelliNews
Iranians of all stripes flocked to the exchange offices on April 10 follow- ing the previous day’s government announcement that, in the face of a spi- ralling devaluation that was undermining the Iranian rial (IRR), it was forbidden
to trade dollars in the open market and the currency was pegged to the green- back rate at IRR42,000. However, many exchanges were refusing to sell at the official new unified price and street corner traders, fearful of the new direc- tive, were conspicuous by their absence. Exchanges complained they were yet to receive official instructions on how to conduct their newly regulated business.
Fears over Iran’s future in the face of unrelenting hostility from Donald Trump – who on May 12 could withdraw the US from the nuclear deal signed two years ago – were a major factor in driving the open market dollar value of the IRR to an all-time low of IRR63,000 in just three days of trading, with the currency also sunk by a lack of trading – independent forex outlets had reached the point where they were refusing to sell hard currencies.
On Ferdowsi Street, the centre of Iran’s forex market, several traders on April 10 were now refusing to sell dollars at the new official price of IRR42,000. Pound sterling and euro rates, mean- while, remained at much higher prices from the day before. However, word later came that the rates for these currencies had been officially set at IRR59,330 and IRR51,709, respectively.
On both sides of the street, traders declined to let go of their valuable greenbacks as they sought to cut their
"Last night on TV I heard it's 42,000 so I came here to buy some for my son who is overseas. I've checked every exchange, but I couldn't find any dollars," said Tahmoores Faravahar, a 71-year-old retired oil sector worker, who spoke
to AFP on April 10.
Other people remained at home looking at their chosen bureau de change website; however, many seemed to be continuing with pre-announcement rates or were entirely offline for periods of time due to massive site access demand.
“Only 5% of Iran's hard currency is estimated to be in the form of notes for sale in banks and exchanges”
losses following Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri’s late-night announcement the day before that any trading for unofficial rates had been made illicit.
Late on April 9, some traders had even resorted to listing their dollars on local second-hand sales website Divar.ir as the news broke about the collapse
in their value.
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