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TEHRAN: Iran's currency plummeted at least 17 percent in trading on Monday, according to media and an online exchange website, severely adding to strains on the Islamic republic's sanctions-hit economy.
In Washington, a US official said the decline was evidence of the success of the international sanctions over Iran's nuclear program.
"From our perspective this speaks to the unrelenting and increasingly successful international pressure that we are all bringing to bear on the Iranian economy. It's under incredible strain," a top State Department official said.
The currency, the rial, weakened to 34,700 to the dollar by the end of the day's trading, according to the Mesghal.com website, a drop of 17 percent compared to the previous day's rate of 29,600.
The Mehr news agency said the rial fell 18 percent to 35,000.
The rial has lost more than 80 percent of its value compared with the end of last year, when it was worth 13,000 to the dollar.
Visitors to the money-changing area in central Tehran said registered dealers were no longer selling dollars in their shops, leaving the market to informal traders in the street — a situation resulting in dollars becoming scarce and thus much more expensive.
The rial's plunge yesterday was largely censored online.
Websites that usually give real-time currency data, such as Mazanex.com, had the dollar rate for the rial blanked out. The Iranian-hosted version of Mesghal (mesghal.ir) disappeared half-way through the day to be replaced with the message "Account Suspended".
The fall sent a shock through Iranian companies.
"It's a disaster," a manager of a business in Iran's import sector told AFP on condition of anonymity. "One business lady was really crying, she was losing millions of dollars."
The Fars news agency said money changers in Tehran were hoarding dollars.
"We do not know what will happen in the coming days, we do not know what the government will do," it quoted one money changer saying.
The official news agency IRNA quoted a spokesman for Iran's money changers' association, Nosrat Ezzati, as saying the latest rates for the rial "are artificial as no real exchange is happening in the market."