A senior central bank of Iraq official said the country will ban cash withdrawals and U.S. dollar transactions from January 1, 2024, in the latest effort to curb the misuse of the country’s hard currency reserves for financial crimes and evade U.S. sanctions on Iran.
Mazen Ahmed, director general of the Investment and Remittances Department at the Central Bank of Iraq, told Reuters the aim of the move is to stop the illegal use of about 50% of the $10 billion in cash imported annually by Iraq from the Federal Reserve Bank in New York.
The move comes as part of a broader campaign to stop the economy’s dependence on the dollar after residents began to prefer the US currency over the dinar.
People who deposit dollars in banks before the end of 2023 will be able to withdraw dollars in 2024, Ahmed said. But dollars deposited in 2024 can only be withdrawn in local currency at the official rate of 1,320 dinars to the dollar.
https://www.annaharar.com/arabic/push-notification/05102023100419159
