The central banks of Iran and Russia will open a joint account and launch correspondent banking soon after the sanctions are lifted, Valiollah Seif, governor of the Central Bank of Iran said on Tuesday.
“The CBI strongly backs any schemes for promoting trade between the two countries,” IRNA quoted him as saying in a meeting with a Russian delegation in Tehran.
Seif said the lack of satisfactory banking relations between the two countries has been a hurdle to expanding bilateral economic ties.
“An organization, including commercial banks from both countries, should be formed to prepare the groundwork for developing banking ties between Iran and Russia,” he said.
He also called for another committee to work on operational measures for creating credit lines between Iranian and Russian lenders.
The CBI is poised to support businesses exporting to Russia as a way of fostering two-way trade. “As one incentive, we allow exporters to Russia to sell their foreign currency revenues in the free market.”
With the official USD at about 30,000 and the free market rate near 36,000, this allows exporters to benefit from the 6,000-rial gap between the two rates.
Denis Manturov, the Russian minister of trade and industry, pointed to the two countries’ joint projects and said, “Efficient banking and financial links is a prerequisite for successful execution of the projects.”
Iran and Russia are taking the first steps to boost bilateral trade ties to reach the $40 billion annual target set in the last meeting of their joint commission in November.
To that end, Moscow organized a three-day exhibition ‘Russia-Iran Trade and Industrial Dialogue’ at Tehran’s International Fairgrounds that ended on Wednesday.
The Russian minister, heading a trade delegation of 100 top managers from Russia’s major industrial firms and banks, arrived in Tehran on Monday to attend the exhibition and associated events to introduce Russian industrial and technological capabilities to the Iranian market.
Aviation, shipbuilding, railroads, auto, energy, agriculture, steel and pharmaceuticals are among the industries Russia introduced at the exhibition.
