[ad_1]
Source: Arabia.net – Saleh Hamid
As Iran witnesses a historic collapse of its currency and a total blockade of its economy as a result of the US sanctions, the governor of the Central Bank of Iran, Abdul Nasser Hemmati, headed to the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, with a banking delegation and commercial, with the aim of collecting debts for Tehran despite the financial ban on Iranian banks.
Iranian media reported that the purpose of the visit is to discuss the release of blocked Iranian assets in Iraq and related to debts related to the sale of gas and electricity to Iraq.
Official sources say Iran owes Iraq around $ 3 billion, as US sanctions exempt Iraq from facilitating the purchase of electricity for a period of 60 days.
Iran is currently facing a shortage of foreign exchange, as the price of the dollar on the Iranian open market in April was about 160,000 riyals (16,000 tomanes), but has now fallen to the threshold of 320,000 riyals (32,000 tomanes). .
Decrease in trade with Iraq
Last week, the director of the Iran-Iraq Chamber of Commerce, Yahya Al Ishaq, announced the significant decline in trade with Iraq, saying that Iran’s exports to Iraq had decreased by 15-20% over the past six months.
He stressed that “our export earnings to Iraq this year amounted to about $ 3.5 billion since the end of March / March, compared to about $ 12 billion last year.”
He added: “Some of our deals with Iraq are in rials, and others are exchanged for bags, which is no longer possible due to the Corona epidemic.”
Evade sanctions
Referring to the method of circumventing sanctions and the financial embargo on Iran, Al Ishaq stated that “transfers between the two countries are made through banking companies and private sector institutions that are of a different type and can sometimes be exchanged for goods and other times for dinars or other currencies. “
Iran had previously announced that non-oil exports to Iraq had been cut in half, as Iraq is the second-largest export destination for Iranian products after China, and its imports from Iran amounted to $ 1.8 billion, according to official figures. .
Last July, the secretary general of the Iran-Iraq Joint Chamber of Commerce, Hamid Hosseini, announced the establishment of a company in Iraq to settle debts with Iran worth $ 5 billion, but made it clear that the payment was not in cash because of the sanctions, but in exchange for the purchase of materials and basic goods for Iran.
Tehran is trying to use the Iraqi financial channel to fulfill its foreign purchases and circumvent US sanctions, but Iranian Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri admitted that Tehran was unable to transfer money due to financial and banking sanctions, saying that “the United States will not it allows us to transfer not a dollar of Iranian money. Located in different countries of the world “.
Washington has moved to tighten the screws on Tehran as more shell companies, fraud methods and entities that have planted it in the region over the years are revealed, especially in Iraq.
Last April, the U.S. Treasury imposed sanctions on 20 Iraqi and Iranian entities that provide support to the Quds Force, in addition to transferring aid to Iraqi militias loyal to Iran, such as the Iraqi Brigades of Hezbollah, Asaib Ahl al-Haq and others.
South Korea
The lack of foreign exchange resources in Iran has led Iran to struggle to get its funds blocked in other countries such as Iraq and South Korea.
And $ 7 billion in Iranian oil revenue has been frozen due to US sanctions on South Korean banks, which in some cases have caused verbal tension between the two countries.
Abdel Nasser Hemmati, governor of the Central Bank of Iran, had previously said that news of the Trump administration’s plan to impose sanctions on banks had a “psychological effect” on the Iranian foreign exchange market.
But the US Treasury Department blacklisted 18 Iranian banks that were previously exempt from some US restrictions, causing the currency to collapse and its continued free fall.
The Iranian newspaper, “Dunay Iqtisad” (The Economist), stated in a report on Sunday that the current market situation is the result of “excitement” over the new US sanctions, saying that “anxiety about the future has pushed many people to enter the currency and gold market, and there are fear of the continuous high exchange rates “.
While the new US sanctions have clearly had an immediate and far-reaching impact on the Iranian currency market and economy, Iranian government officials have repeatedly described the US government’s actions as “electoral propaganda.”
On Sunday, the head of Iran’s Strategic Council on Foreign Relations, Kamal Kharrazi, said about the pressure of sanctions on the Iranian people that “there is an increase in prices, this is true, but our people will bear the economic pressures.” as he himself said.
In turn, the Central Bank of Iran announced that it will inject 50 million dollars a day into the market to prevent the continued collapse of the riyal, starting Monday.
[ad_2]
