Description of the member of the Parliamentary Finance Committee, Jamal Koujar The dollar exchange rate fluctuated in the parallel market “temporarily”, and if the rise continues, we will head to host the governor of the Central Bank of Iraq .
Koger said “The Parliamentary Finance Committee is closely following up with the Central Bank the dollar exchange rate in the parallel market, and that the rise and fall of the exchange rate is temporary and not stable .”
He added, “If the rise continues during the coming period, there will be another opinion from the House of Representatives,” adding that “the Finance Committee, if the rise continues, will head to host the Governor of the Central Bank in the House of Representatives .”
The Iraqi market witnessed a significant increase in the exchange rate of the dollar against the Iraqi dinar, as it exceeded 150 thousand dinars for every hundred dollars, despite the government measures taken to control its price in the parallel market .
It is noteworthy that since the beginning of 2023, Washington has intervened to limit the smuggling of dollars from Iraq, which led to its price rising in the local market to a record level of 170,000 dinars per 100 dollars, due to the decline in the Central Bank of Iraq’s sales of dollars, before it declined again and the Central Bank returned to selling dollars at auction .
It is worth noting that currency smuggling is ongoing, despite controls on banks, and is carried out via bags transported overland to Turkey and Iran, after withdrawing the dollar from the local market and not through the official dollar selling window. Specialists have called it “black transfers,” and it has become a phenomenon that has not been controlled at the moment .
In addition to the “black transfers”, Iraq witnessed other operations to withdraw the dollar at its official price and sell it at the parallel market price, by exploiting the dollar granted to travelers, returning to Iraq and selling it to achieve large profits. The name “sailors” was given to those who do this work, especially some travel and tourism companies.
