Yemen Monitor/Sana’a/Exclusive:
Hard currency has disappeared from exchange companies in Sana’a and other Houthi-controlled areas in recent days, following decisions by the government-controlled central bank to give a 60-day deadline for dealing with the old Yemeni currency.
The central bank in Aden had decided to stop dealing with major commercial banks in areas controlled by the Houthi armed group.
Money changers in Sana’a told Yemen Monitor that their administrations have prevented them from cashing any remittances in hard currency.
Traders and customers said that exchange bureaus are handing over their remittances in local currency, not Saudi riyals nor dollars.
Mohammed Abdul-Alim told Yemen Monitor that he was supposed to receive a remittance from a relative in Aden “in Saudi riyals, but most exchange bureaus in his area (al-Thawra in the capital Sana’a) refused to hand it over to him except after converting it into local currency.”
He added: “I was forced to take it in Yemeni riyals because I needed some of it, and we were planning to keep the rest in Saudi riyals, but that didn’t happen.”
The same is happening in the coastal city of Hodeidah, where a Yemen Monitor correspondent reported that exchange bureaus are refusing to hand over remittances in dollars or Saudi riyals.
He quoted a money changer as saying that “the instructions are to withdraw as much hard currency as possible from the market and avoid taking it out.”
The money changer pointed out that dozens of exchange bureaus are operating in the same way.
Economists expect that the decision of the central bank in Aden to withdraw old currency printed before 2016 will lead to a decline in the value of the riyal in Houthi-controlled areas, as well as an increase in demand for it from traders to buy goods from abroad after the bank stopped dealing with commercial banks that were dealing with foreign international institutions and obtaining privileges from the central bank in Aden.
