No danger of fall in ISK

“Cur­rency restricti­ons will be lifted in a way which avoids any risk of a fall­ing ISK exchange rate. The basis for all our work tow­ards lift­ing restricti­ons is to elim­ina­te any such dan­ger,” stated Icelandic Fin­ance Mini­ster, Bjarni Bene­dikts­son, in the Icelandic Parlia­ment (‘Alþing­i’) this morn­ing.

The remarks were in respon­se to a qu­esti­on from Katrín Júlí­us­dótt­ir, MP for the centre-left Social Democratic Alli­ance. Júlí­us­dótt­ir asked what the go­vern­ment in­t­ended to do to protect hou­seholds from any possi­ble negati­ve con­sequ­ences of lift­ing restricti­ons.

Both Bene­dikts­son and the Icelandic Prime Mini­ster, Sig­mund­ur Davíð Gunn­laugs­son, are con­fi­dent that initial mea­sures to lift the cur­rency restricti­ons in place in Ice­land since 2008 can be launched this year.

“This is why things have taken this long. We will not contempl­a­te any form of lift­ing restricti­ons which may lead to a fall in the ISK exchange rate,” Bene­dikts­son clarified.