Ирак динары: тарихы мен айналымы

Currency of Iraq

The Iraqi dinar (Arabic: دينار; sign: ID in Latin, د.ع in Arabic; code: IQD) is the currency of Iraq. It is issued by the Central Bank of Iraq and is subdivided into 1,000 fils (فلس), although inflation has rendered the fils obsolete since 1990. On 7 February 2023, the exchange rate with the US Dollar was US$1 = 1300 dinars.

The Iraqi dinar entered circulation on 1 April 1932, replacing the Indian rupee, which had been the official currency since the British occupation of the country in World War I, at a rate of 1 dinar = 11 rupees. The dinar was pegged at par with sterling until 1959 when, without changing its value, the peg was switched to the United States dollar at the rate of ID 1 = US$2.80. By not following the US devaluations in 1971 and 1973, the official rate rose to US$3.3778, before a 5% devaluation reduced its rate to US$3.2169, a rate which remained until the Gulf War in 1990, although in late 1989 the black market rate was reported at five to six times higher than the official rate.

After the Gulf War in 1990, due to UN sanctions, Iraq was no longer able to place orders with De La Rue for further issues of the previously high quality notes, so new notes were produced. The pre 1990 notes became known as the “Swiss dinars” while the new dinar notes were called “Saddam dinars”. Due to United States and the international sanctions on Iraq along with excessive government printing, the Saddam dinar currency devalued quickly. By late 1995, US$1 was valued at ID 3,000 on the black market. Swiss dinars notes continued to circulate in the politically isolated Kurdish regions of Iraq. The Kurdish government refused to accept the low quality Saddam dinar notes (which were issued in huge amounts). Since the supply of Saddam dinar notes increased while the supply of Swiss dinar notes remained stable (even decreased because of notes taken out of circulation), the Swiss dinar notes appreciated against the Saddam dinar note. By having its own stable currency, the northern part of Iraq effectively evaded inflation, which ran rampant throughout the rest of the country. After Saddam Hussein was deposed in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the Iraqi Governing Council and the Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance printed more Saddam dinar notes as a stopgap measure to maintain the money supply until a new currency could be introduced. Between 15 October 2003 and 15 January 2004, the Coalition Provisional Authority issued new Iraqi dinar notes and coins, with the notes printed by the British security printing firm De La Rue using modern anti forgery techniques to "create a single unified currency that is used throughout all of Iraq and will also make money more convenient to use in people's everyday lives". Multiple trillions of dinars were shipped to Iraq and secured in the Central Bank to exchange for Saddam dinar notes. Saddam dinar notes were exchanged for the new dinars at par, while Swiss dinar notes were exchanged at a rate of one Swiss dinar = 150 new dinars. Inflation and depreciation of the currency has continued since. On 19 December 2020, Iraq's Central Bank devalued the dinar by 24% to improve the government's revenue, which was affected by the COVID 19 pandemic and low oil prices. On 2 March 2019, the Central Bank's indicative exchange rate was ID 1,190 = US$1. and on 18 June 2021 it was ID 1,460.5000 = US$1. There is considerable confusion (perhaps intentional on the part of dinar sellers) around the role of the International Monetary Fund in Iraq. The IMF as part of the rebuilding of Iraq is monitoring Iraq's finances and for this purpose uses a single rate (not a sell/buy) of ID 1170 per US$. This "program rate" is used for calculations in the IMF monitoring program and is not a rate imposed on Iraq by the IMF. For a wider history surrounding currency in the region, see British currency in the Middle East.

There is little international demand for dinars, since Iraq has few exports other than oil, which is sold in US dollars. Thus there is often an extremely high exchange rate for dinars compared with other currencies. However, the downfall of Saddam Hussein resulted in the development of a multi million dollar industry involving the sale of dinars to speculators. Such exchange services and companies sell dinars at an inflated price, pushing the idea that the dinar would sharply increase in value to a profitable exchange rate some time in the future, instead of being redenominated. This activity can be either a legitimate service to currency speculators, or foreign exchange fraud: at least one major such currency exchange provider was convicted of fraud involving the dinar. This trade revived after the election of Donald Trump in November 2016, with many buyers believing that Trump would cause a sharp revaluation in the dinar (often referred to by the abbreviation "RV" by supporters of the dinar trade,) to an exchange rate comparable to the US dollar. In 2014, Keith Woodwell (director of the Utah Division of Securities) and Mike Rothschild (writer for Skeptoid blog) stated that the speculation over the Iraqi dinar originated from a misunderstanding of why the value of the Kuwaiti dinar recovered after the First Gulf War, leading to an assumption that the Iraqi dinar would follow suit after the fall of Saddam: Woodwell and Rothschild noted substantial differences in economic and political stability between Iraq and Kuwait, with Iraq facing pervasive sectarian violence amid near total reliance on oil exports. In response to the growing concerns about fraud and scams related to investment in the Iraqi dinar, State agencies such as Washington State, Utah, Oklahoma, Alabama and others issued statements and releases warning potential investors. Further alerts were issued by news agencies. These alerts usually warn potential investors that there is no place outside Iraq to exchange the dinar, that they are typically sold by dealers at inflated prices, and that there is little evidence to substantiate the claims of significant appreciation of their investment due to revaluation of the currency. In February 2014, the Better Business Bureau included investing in the dinar as one of the ten most notable scams in 2013. There has also been a book written on the subject.