TEHRAN: The head of Iran’s Central Bank resigned on Monday as protests erupted in Tehran and several other cities after the country’s currency plummeted to a new record low against the US dollar.
State TV reported the resignation of Mohammed Reza Farzin, as hundreds of traders and shopkeepers rallied on Saadi Street in downtown Tehran and in the Shush neighborhood near Tehran’s main Grand Bazaar.
The official IRNA news agency confirmed protest gatherings.
Witnesses reported similar rallies in other major cities, including Isfahan in central Iran, Shiraz in the south, and Mashhad in the northeast.
In some places in Tehran, police fired tear gas to disperse protesters.
Witnesses said that traders shut their shops and asked others to do the same.
The semi-official ILNA news agency reported that many businesses stopped trading, even though some kept their shops open.
On Sunday, protests were limited to two major mobile markets in downtown Tehran, where the demonstrators chanted anti-government slogans.
Iran’s rial on Sunday plunged to 1.42 million to the dollar.
On Monday, it traded at 1.38 million rials to the dollar.
Reports about Farzin’s possible resignation have circulated over the past week.
When he took office in 2022, the rial was trading at around 430,000 to the dollar.
The rapid depreciation is compounding inflationary pressure, pushing up prices of food and other daily necessities and further straining household budgets, a trend that could worsen with a gasoline price change introduced in recent days.
According to the state statistics center, the inflation rate in December rose to 42.2 percent from the same period last year and is 1.8 percentage points higher than in November.
Food prices rose 72 percent, and health and medical items were up 50 percent from December last year, according to the statistics center.
Reports in official Iranian media that the government plans to increase taxes in the Iranian new year, which begins on March 21, have raised further concern.
Iran’s currency was trading at 32,000 rials to the dollar at the time of the 2015 nuclear accord that lifted international sanctions in exchange for tight controls on Iran’s nuclear program.
