Persian Gulf update 1/17/2020...Iran's supreme leader gives his first Friday sermon in Tehran in eight years

Iran’s supreme leader gives his first Friday sermon in Tehran in eight years

Iran’s supreme leader said President Donald Trump is a “clown” who only pretends to support the Iranian people but will “push a poisonous dagger” into their backs, as he struck a defiant tone in his first Friday sermon in Tehran in eight years.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif says the Islamic Republic is ready to hold talks with Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf countries to promote regional security.

“We are ready for negotiations with Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf littoral states and we are ready to give proposals regarding security in this region, particularly the Strait of Hormuz,” Zarif said in an address to a meeting held in the Indian city of Mumbai on Friday in coordination with All India Association of Industries (AIAI).

He added that Iran has also presented proposals on ways to establish peace in the Strait of Hormuz.

Established in 1956 in Mumbai, the AIAI has over 1,500 members and through its affiliates it represents over 50,000 industries.

In an address to the 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly on September 25, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said as a steward of maritime security in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, Iran invites all countries that are affected by developments in the strategic region to join the country’s new regional peace initiative, dubbed Hormuz Peace Endeavor (HOPE).

He said the “coalition of hope” aims to promote peace, stability, progress and prosperity of littoral states and help achieve mutual understanding and establish peaceful and friendly relations among them.

The Iranian foreign minister said in October 2019 that he is ready to visit Saudi Arabia to help reduce tensions between Riyadh and Tehran if suitable conditions existed.

“If suitable conditions are provided, I would be ready to travel to Riyadh to settle differences” between the two countries, Zarif said while answering a question posed by Yemen’s Arabic-language al-Masirah news agency.

“Tehran welcomes any initiative that aims to ease tensions in the region and will cooperate [with other parties] to end Yemen’s war,” he added.

FarsNews Agency – Iran to Launch New Monetary Policies on Saturday

President Hassan Rouhani, during a visit to the headquarters of the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) in Northern Tehran, announced the upcoming launch of open market operation (OMO) policies in the country’s banking system, to improve CBI’s control over the capital flow in the country.

The Central Bank of Iran said on Thursday that it would start to implementing OMO policies as of Saturday January 18, 2018, in a bid to pursue better control over the capital flow in the country.

The announcement was made as President Rouhani visited the CBI headquarters in Northern Tehran to meet with senior banking officials of the country.

“Today, the supervision of the CBI on banks and the scrutiny have increased and the OMO which was unveiled today and will be implemented from Saturday is a very good move,” said Rouhani while marking the launch of the new monetary policy in Iran.

The CBI had planned to start using OMO measures in late September. The delay comes amid the bank’s struggle to cope with financial difficulties caused by the American sanctions on Iran, including waves of fluctuations in the currency market.

CBI governor Abdolnasser Hemmati said on Thursday that OMO policies would greatly improve the CBI’s ability to monitor overdrafts in the banks.

He said the policy, a first to come in CBI’s 60-year history, should be viewed as a revolutionizing change in the way the country has managed capital flow, especially in interbank lending market.

Despite repeated attempts by the CBI to reduce the interest rate paid to deposits in Iran, banks still prefer rates that are much higher than many other countries in the world.

Experts believe open market operation would give the CBI more control over the interest rates while it would allow a better control over liquidity and inflation in the country.

Last month, President Rouhani said that the country’s budget bill for the next fiscal year had been set in a way to offset the negative effects of the US sanctions and, hence, includes a significant cut in oil revenues.

“Our budget for the next year, like the current year, will be based on resistance against sanctions; the budget’s message is that we will manage the country despite all sanctions,” Rouhani said in an open session of the Parliament in Tehran.

“Next year’s budget is not much reliant on oil. Anticipated revenues for oil and gas sales are close to the required budget for civil projects,” he said, adding that 700 trillion rials (some $5.3 billion) have been allocated to such projects.

Rouhani was at the Parliament to submit the next year’s budget bill.

“We were under the toughest sanctions last year; we promised that the administration, with the support of the resistant Iranian nation and other organizations, would make every effort to provide and implement the budget and this has been realized by now,” Rouhani said.

Nine months have passed since the start of the local calendar year of 1398 and all the daily budgets have been provided, he said, adding that 340 trillion rials (some $2.6 billion) have been allocated to civil projects. “Major projects have either been inaugurated or will be by the year-end.”

“All this has been realized while Americans and Zionists thought that sanctions would cripple the government, but they gave up on that and will keep being disappointed in the future,” Rouhani said.

In October, Hemmati announced that the country has further reduced its reliance on oil revenues to bring the share of the income earned though crude sales in the budget to less than 30 percent.

“Oil has had the major share of production and exports in Iran’s economy for 50 years, but today less than one-third of the exports is related to oil,” Hemmati wrote on his Instagram.

He reiterated that Iran’s economic growth had been greatly affected by the oil sector, but now the situation has changed.

“The CBI will be able to create stability in non-oil sector by adopting monetary and currency policies,” the CBI governor added.