New policy at Central Bank auction to sell more dollars

March 30, 2007

Demand for the dollar increased in the Iraqi Central Bank’s daily auction on Thursday, reaching $90.030 million compared with $33.045 million on Wednesday.

In its daily statement the bank said it had covered all bids, which included $10.630 million in cash and $79.400 million in foreign transfers, at an exchange rate of 1,273 dinars per dollar, unchanged since yesterday. 

Fourteen banks participated in Thursday's auction and offered to sell $25 million. The Iraqi Central Bank bought the entire amount at 1,271 per Iraqi dinar.

Ali al-Yasseri, a trader at the auction, told VOI "the hike in demand for the dollar in today's session was partly due to the high foreign transfers by governmental departments and partly because of a new policy to encourage the sale of more dollars and to obtain dinars to cover items from the Iraqi national budget, announced this year in dinars."