Iran still reducing dollar share in reserves

By Natsuko Waki

BASEL, Switzerland (Reuters) - Iran is still reducing the share of dollars in its foreign exchange reserves as it sees no need to hold the U.S. currency, the country's central bank vice-governor told Reuters on Saturday.

Jafar Mojarrad also said the world's central bank governors agree that politics should not influence the global financial system, and that this view is shared by the U.S. Federal Reserve.

"We have reduced dollar compositions. We have decided, (given) political pressure on us, to reduce composition because we have stopped dollar transactions for trade altogether ... we are still in the process," Mojarrad said in the Swiss city of Basel.

"We are not doing any dollar transactions so there's no need to keep dollars in reserves."

Iran has been steadily shifting its FX reserves away from dollars into other currencies such as the euro, a move the central bank said was partly a response to U.S. hostility towards Tehran.

Iran does not give a total reserves figure but Iran's central bank governor has said previously that it amounts to "tens of billions of dollars."

The central bank said in March the share of dollars in its FX reserves had been reduced to about 20 percent, compared with around 40 percent in December.