Hours before the United States designated the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) on April 9, worries about renewed economic pressure sparked a fresh plunge in the value of Iran’s national currency. In a matter of 24 hours, the rial lost around 7.5% of its value. Hovering near 145,000 rials against the greenback, worries were fueled of yet another wave of inflation. Many ordinary Iranians, whose purchasing power has dwindled in the past 14 months, once again rushed to money changers and quickly formed long queues in central Tehran.

But the governor of the Central Bank of Iran promptly moved to ease such concerns, assuring the public that the new jump would not last long. According to Abdolnasser Hemmati, the US measure to brand the IRGC as an FTO would be of "no fundamental economic impact" and the Central Bank was closely watching the market. "What has created the turbulence these days is only a psychological factor," Hemmati added.

On April 10 — a day after those comments — relative calm seemed to return. The rial's sharp nosedive stopped, and a prompt reversal to around the rates before the FTO designation of the IRGC was seen. At close of business, the greenback traded for 137,500 rials.

However, what still remains a concern as admitted by Hemmati is the hard currency Iran expects to repatriate from its non-oil exports. Official figures indicate that the country retrieved only 25% of its non-oil exports in the period between March 2018 and February 2019. "If the government and the Central Bank fail to tackle this fundamental threat, more turbulence in the currency market is likely," Hemmati warned.