Iran
dumps dollar for euro in foreign trade transactions
RT,
23
April, 2018
As
part of its years-long effort to reduce reliance on US currency amid
a deepening standoff with Washington, Tehran has announced it will
start reporting foreign currency amounts in euros rather than
dollars.
The
governor of Iran’s central bank (CBI) Valiollah Seif said that
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had welcomed his suggestion of
replacing the dollar with the euro in foreign trade, as the “dollar
has no place in our transactions today.” The new policy could
reportedly encourage government bodies and firms linked to the state
to increase their use of the euro at the expense of the American
currency.
France
will start offering euro-denominated credits to Iranian buyers of its
goods later this year to keep its trade out of the reach of US
sanctions, said the head of state-owned French investment bank
Bpifrance.
According
to CBI’s Director of Foreign Exchange Rules and Policies Affairs
Mehdi Kasraeipour, the share of the greenback in Iran’s trade
activities is not high. As part of a trade embargo, US banks are
banned from dealing with Iran
Last
month, Tehran announced that purchase orders by merchants that are
based on US currency would no longer be allowed to go through import
procedures. The step followed an official request by the CBI and was
specifically meant to address fluctuations in market rates of the US
dollar.
The
Iranian currency has lost almost half of its value on the free market
since last September. The rial has plunged to a record low of about
60,000 against the dollar before authorities set a fixed rate of
42,000 and warned Iranians they would face penalties for using other
rates.
Khamenei
blamed foreign enemies for the “recent issues in the currency
market” and asked Iran’s intelligence services to defuse the
plots against the Islamic republic.
Tehran,
which has long sought to switch to non-dollar-based trade, had
already signed agreements with several countries. It’s in talks
with Russia on using national currencies in settlements.
While
meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in November, Khamenei
said the best way to beat US sanctions against the two countries was
joint efforts to dump the American currency in bilateral trade. He
told President Putin that, by using methods such as eliminating the
US dollar and replacing it with national currencies in transactions
between two or more parties, the sides could “isolate the
Americans.”
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.