TEHRAN (Iran News) – Minister of Finance says Iran seeks trade with China and Russia in yuan and roubles and wants to eliminate euro and dollar in its trade with these two countries

Speaking to reporters, Ehsan Khandouzi said that using the rial and Yuan can solve challenges facing Iran-China financial transactions and trade, adding that Iran and China enjoy strong economic ties.

The Finance Minister who is the spokesman of government economic team said the administration is seeking to minimize in-dollar trades with its partners.

Khandouzi told reporters in response to a question about dollar-free trade that it was the issue President Raisi pursued in his visit to China and Russia, which was welcomed by the two sides.

He added: “The policy of Raisi’s administration in commercial transactions with its main trading partners is to use the capacity of local currencies and minimize the need for global currencies such as the euro and the dollar.”

Until today, the majority of Iran’s trade with China as a trading partner was going on in yuan and rarely in currencies other than yuan, he noted.

The minister also said that the governor of Central Bank had negotiations with the relevant Chinese officials and its results would be reported by him.

The economic spokesman of the Iranian administration said that in the 11 months of the current Iranian year (starting from March 21, 2022), the total revenues of the administration was 1,147,000 billion tomans, which is equivalent to 9% of the figure approved by the budget law for the coming year, which if compared with the same period last year, it has been increased by 60% in revenues.

Khandouzi emphasized: “The current revenues and the tax field and other current revenues of the administration have been realized in a suitable manner, almost 100% of the approved figure of the 11-month budget.”

He further said: “In the field of expenditure in 11 months, 1154,000 billion tomans were the administration’s expenses, which increased by 52 percent in the 11 months of this year compared to last year. Almost equivalent to 90 percent of the number approved in the current year’s budget law, has been realized.”

“Meanwhile, the administration’s construction payments in 11 months have reached 104,000 billion tomans, which is an increase of eight percent over the eleven months of last year,” he said.

The economic spokesman of the administration added: “In the field of bonds, the administration’s financial performance shows that the government has repaid 126,000 billion tomans of the principal and interest of the bonds sold by the administration this year and the last one or two years, which if divided monthly, 11 and a half thousand billion tomans per month from the administration’s revenues have been used to repay the interest of bonds of the past years.”

He claimed that the condition of the forex will get better in the upcoming weeks and blamed virtual space for recent rise in devaluation of rial against dollar.

He also noted that the growth rate of liquidity has fallen to 34.1% and it bespeaks of success of the monetary policy of the country.