Iran, Russia to Trade in National Currencies, Moscow Confirms
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – A Russian official on Wednesday confirmed that Tehran and Moscow have agreed to transition to mutual trade in national currencies between the two countries.
The Russian Agency for Export Credit and Investment Insurance (EXIAR) and its Iranian partners agreed on mutual guarantees for transactions in national currencies, its Chief Executive Officer Alexey Tyupanov told TASS on Wednesday.
"We’ve agreed to share risks. If we have projects in Iran they may guarantee them to us and vice versa. We’ll battle the scheme out, starting from small sums of 10-20 million dollars," Tyupanov added.
"We’ll try to cut deals in national currencies. Our main task is to ensure that if Iranian export flows to Russia it will not flow via grey schemes in various countries but in ruble-rial pair via correspondent accounts in Russian banks," he said.
On Tuesday, Valiollah Seif, the governor of the Central Bank of Iran (CBI), also said both Tehran and Moscow have made the necessary preparations to create a mechanism to connect their banking sectors to facilitate trade between the two countries in their own currencies.
Seif said a special committee should be set up between Iran and Russia to identify the current obstacles that are preventing the expansion of their mutual banking relations.
He also said that a technical team needs to be formed to activate mechanisms for providing credit lines between Iran and Russia.
Tehran and Moscow plan to boost mutual trade turnover from the current $1.7 bln to $10 bln while one of the most serious obstacles for doing this is the impossibility of payments in dollars or euro with Iranian banks due to anti-Tehran sanctions.
Iran and the Group 5+1 (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France and Germany) on July 14 reached a conclusion over the text of a comprehensive 159-page deal on Tehran's nuclear program.
The comprehensive nuclear deal between Iran and the six powers would terminate all nuclear-related sanctions imposed on Iran after coming into force, and help the country return to the global market.
Experts believe that Iran's economic growth would rise remarkably after the final nuclear deal takes effect.
