Iran currency jumps over 3% after nuclear deal

by Reuters, Jpost.com, Nov. 24, 2013

DUBAI – Iran’s currency jumped more than 3 percent against the US dollar on Sunday as news of a breakthrough deal to curb Tehran’s nuclear program raised hopes that the economy would start recovering from international sanctions.

The rial traded at around 29,000 against the dollar in Tehran’s free market, Iranian traders said, up from about 30,000 before the agreement was reached by diplomats in Geneva in the early hours of Sunday.

“We are feeling the positive sentiment in Iran,” Nariman Aflani, foreign exchange trader at AFI Group, an Iranian civil engineering firm, said by telephone.

He said that prices of construction materials such as ceramics and cement within Iran were coming down because people hoped a gradual loosening of sanctions would make it easier for the country to obtain supplies from abroad.

Under the Geneva agreement, Iran will receive minor relief from the sanctions, including potential access to $1.5 billion in revenue from trade in gold and precious metals, and permission to transfer $4.2 billion of revenue from its oil sales across borders.