US dollar exchange rate drops against Iraqi dinar

A currency exchange agent counts US dollars at his company in Iraq’s southern city of Basra. Photo: Hussein Faleh/AFP Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) – The exchange rate for the US dollar against the Iraqi dinar experienced a decline on Sunday in both Baghdad, the capital of Iraq, and Erbil, the capital of the Kurdistan region of Iraq. The US dollar exchange rate dropped in Baghdad’s al-Kifah and al-Harithiya stock exchanges, reaching 1,537.5 Iraqi dinars compared to 1,540 Iraqi dinars on Sunday morning. The exchange rate in currency exchange shops in Baghdad ranged between 1,542.5 Iraqi dinars and 1,532.5 Iraqi dinars, Shafaq News reported. In Erbil, the US dollar exchange rate fell, fluctuating between 1,537.5 and 1,537 Iraqi dinars. The Central Bank of Iraq (CBI) said in February 2023 that it has begun using the new US dollar exchange rate of 1,300 dinars to every US dollar. The previous official exchange rate was 1,450 dinars to one US dollar, which was being exchanged in the parallel market at a rate of 1,550 dinars. While the official exchange rate was 1,450 dinars per dollar in January 2023, the US currency was being exchanged at 1,610 dinars during the same month in the parallel market in Iraq. This variation indicated a difference of over 10 percent in the exchange rates.