The change is the outcome of a draft bill presented in early 2019 by the governor of Iran’s central bank, Abdolnasser Hemati. He noted that the currency has been devalued 3,500 times since 1971 and that Iran had no choice but to “save the face” of its national currency, according to Iranian official media reports. Earlier attempts by President Hassan Rouhani’s government to change the currency as far back as 2016 had remained in limbo.

Source: New York Times May 04, 2020 23:15 UTC