Economic consequences of Iran's foreign exchange policy in the years 1931-1939

This study examines the causes and factors of the formation of the Foreign Exchange Commission in 1929 in order to deal with the outflow of foreign currency from the country and the consequences of that policy in increasing the export of agricultural products. To advance this policy, the Ministry of National Economy and then the Economic Council were formed in the following year to oversee the country's liquidity. The most important strategy of the country's monetary program from this year onwards was to adopt an austerity policy, that is, the commission determined what products should bring into the country and how much of the allocated currency they could receive. At the same time, traders had to export domestic products at the rate of the currency they had exported, so that the currency could be returned to the country's treasury. To strengthen the value of the national currency, purity was the first priority of economic planning, as it prevented the export of foreign currency. So, the main question of this study is how did the government act to deal with the economic crisis and the shortage of its foreign exchange resources, and what was the result of those actions? This article analyzes the mentioned policy in a descriptive-analytical method and relies on reliable sources as well as statistics, and discusses its strengths and weaknesses.