On April 13, 2024, two men held Iranian banknotes on the sidewalk in the business district of Tehran, Iran.
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Iran’s currency, the rial, fell to a record low against the U.S. dollar in unofficial markets on Saturday night as Tehran launched a massive missile and drone attack on Israel, heightening tensions in the Middle East.
The open market rate was 705,000 rials per dollar at around 10:30 a.m. local time on Sunday, according to foreign exchange monitoring website Bonbast. The Iranian currency has since recovered some of its losses.
In 2018, the government set the official exchange rate at 42,000 rials/USD.
The rial’s slide came hours after Iran deployed a massive drone and missile offensive against Israel on Saturday night in response to a suspected Israeli attack in Damascus earlier this month that killed several senior Iranian commanders. Official died.
Israel said it had detected 300 “threats of all types” and neutralized “99 per cent” of those traveling to Israeli territory as part of Saturday’s attack, which US leader Joe Biden called “unprecedented” “and “shameless”.
The development marks the first direct attack on Israel from Iranian soil, and Tehran now risks further trade and diplomatic restrictions.
The Iranian rial is already facing high inflationary pressures stemming from ongoing U.S. sanctions under Donald Trump’s administration, which have also reduced sales of some of Tehran’s main exports – crude oil and petroleum products.
Israel called for an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council over Saturday’s attack, while Biden called for a G7 meeting on Sunday.
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