Figures by the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) show the lender has allocated more than $4.5 billion in subsidized currency to imports of goods and equipment into the country since the start of the calendar year on March 21.
CBI figures published on Monday showed that it had earmarked some $1.528 billion in heavily subsidized currency to imports of basic goods and medicine in the past 45 days.
The CBI has a rate of 285,000 rials per US dollar, which it applies to imports of basic goods, including some grains and staple food items.
That comes as the market price of the US dollar was nearly 850,000 rials in Tehran on Monday.
Iran has a secondary rate for the US dollar and other hard currencies that it uses for imports of non-essential goods. Iranian exporters are also required to supply the hard currency they earn from overseas sales to importers at that price.
The rate, discovered during daily trade at CBI’s Currency Market of Mutually-Agreed Prices, was around 700,000 rials per US dollar on Monday.
CBI figures on imports showed that the lender had spent $2.857 billion at secondary rate on imports of commercial and trade commodities since the start of the current calendar year.
Another $0.13 billion was spent on imports related to Iran’s services sector, according to the figures.
The data comes as Iran is still under a regime of unilateral US sanctions, which restricts the country’s oil exports and its access to the international banking system.
Iran has imposed strict controls on spending of hard currency for imports in recent years to be able to cope with the economic impacts of the sanctions.