Baku, Azerbaijan, July 22
By Fatih Karimov - Trend: Only $30 billion of Iran's assets frozen abroad is accessible, said Iran's finance and economic affairs minister Ali Tayyebnia.
"The country's foreign exchange reserve may be around one hundred billion dollars, but less than $30 billion of the reserve is accessible," Iran 's IRNA news agency quoted Tayyebnia as saying July 22.
He confirmed the figure announced by the Central Bank of Iran on the country's assets abroad, saying that some $35 billion of the sum has been deposited to the account of NICO (Naftiran Intertrade Company), a general contractor for the National Iranian Oil Company, to implement projects.
Moreover, some $22 billion has been paid to China Insurance Company as collateral to finance Iranian projects, he noted.
So, just less than $30 billion of the foreign assets is accessible, he added.
Iranian Central Bank Governor Valiollah Seif said July 15 that Iran's frozen assets abroad amount to $29 billion.
He added that $23 billion of the Central Bank's assets are blocked in Japan, South Korea, and the United Arab Emirates, and $6 billion of the petrodollars are blocked in India.
The blocked assets will be unfrozen after the lifting of the sanctions takes effect, he noted.
On July 20, Gholamreza Mesbahi-Moqaddam, the member of the Iranian parliament's budget and planning committee said Iran's foreign currency reserve overseas amount to $130 billion.
A final agreement was reached on Iran's disputed nuclear program in the Austrian city of Vienna on July 14 after some 22 months of talks between Iran and the P5+1 (five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany).
Edited by CN