
“The reason we provided $2bn in foreign currency for the market was to make Trump and his Treasury secretary understand that we have no problem providing foreign currency,” Abdolnaser Hemmati said in remarks carried by Iranian state broadcaster IRIB.
Hemmati said Iran had supplied about $24.9bn in foreign currency by early October, down about 12 percent from $28bn during the same period last year.
He said the decline mainly affected the industrial sector and did not extend to essential goods. Foreign currency supplied to fund medicine imports rose by 30 percent compared with the same period last year, he added.
His remarks come after Iran’s rial fell to a new low on Saturday, amid US sanctions aimed at restricting Tehran’s access to foreign exchange, reports AL Jazeera.