TEHRAN (Iran News) –Economy Minister economic spokesman of the government Ehsan Khandouzi says: Today, the share of the dollar in Iran’s foreign trade has shrunk to less than ten percent, while two years ago, according to the information of the Central Bank of Iran (CBI), the dollar’s share was nearly 30 percent.
Speaking in his weekly presser, the economic spokesperson of the government added: “You are aware that since 2018 and after the resumption of US sanctions against Iran, using other currencies was on the agenda of the government so that we can reduce our reliance on the dollar. Unfortunately, the processes were moving slowly, but with the seriousness that the president and the government had to speed up the reduction of the dollar in the country’s trade, very good measures have been taken and the share of the dollar in Iran’s trade has decreased greatly.”
Khandouzi said: “Iran is mulling the use of alternative and local currencies of trading partner countries. Another point was the connection of the country’s banking network to the electronic payment network of the countries in the region, and this has happened in the case of Russia, and in the coming months, we will see that Iranian businessmen can meet their needs during their travels to Russia without using dollar-based banking systems.
Regarding the link of Iran’s banking network to the banking network of other countries, including Turkey, Oman, and Iraq, the spokesman said that the CBI was also following up.
Another measure taken is the revival of mechanisms based on barter transactions between two or three countries, which reduces the need for dollars or euros, the spokesman highlighted.
The Central Bank has also started good cooperation with the Asian Clearing Union (ACU) and the meeting of the union is scheduled to be held in Tehran in May with the presence of nine countries.
ACU is a payment arrangement between the central banks of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Iran, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.
“Bilateral or multilateral monetary agreements are being pursued by CBI, especially with countries that are our main trading partners. All of these measures have caused the share of the dollar in Iran’s foreign trade to decrease by nearly a third in the last two years and reach less than ten percent, which is also not acceptable and the government is trying to seriously reduce its share,” the minister underscored.
Meanwhile the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) is seriously pursuing the policy of de-dollarization and intends to use alternative options to accelerate the global trend, says CBI Governor Mohammadreza Farzin.
“It should be noted that de-dollarization is one of the important policies which we are sensitive about,” Farzin said on Tuesday during an open session of the parliament.
According to the CBI governor, Iran will host a meeting of the Asian Clearing Union (ACU) in the near future, which will bring together all nine member states and several central bank governors from regional and Asia-Pacific countries.
He added that the meeting will accelerate the global trend of de-dollarization.
The ACU aims to facilitate settlement of payments on a multilateral basis and promote the use of participants’ currencies.
“In fact, bartering, rather than using the dollar; reaching bilateral monetary agreements, which is being finalized with several countries; and multilateral monetary agreements are the three main topics of the aforementioned international meeting that will help materialize de-dollarization,” Farzin explained.
Iran has announced its decision to move away from the US dollar and has acted on the decision in cooperation with other independent countries.
On Sunday, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi ordered the CBI to lay the ground for conducting foreign trade transactions using Iran’s national currency rial.
