Azerbaijan, Baku, July 27 /Trend S.Isayev, T. Jafarov/
Iranian government has started allocating billions of U.S. dollars for insuring its own oil tankers, an official from country's insurance industry said, Fars reported.
According to the official, the government has already transferred about 10 percent of the sum to Iran's central insurance company. The overall sum was not revealed.
As soon as the Central insurance company receives all of the sum, it will start spreading it to the smaller local insurance companies.
The official added that the government considers this issue the first priority.
EU and the U.S. imposed numerous sanctions on Iran that officially became active on July 1. Also, the U.S. issued a law that penalises countries that do business with the Central Bank of Iran by denying their banks access to the United States market. The law came into force on June 28.
The sanctions imposed on Iran were due to the possibility of country's nuclear program, which the U.S. and EU say is designed to produce atomic weapons and the government in Tehran says is for civilian purposes.
Because of the sanctions, many foreign insurance companies were prohibited from working with Iran, and insuring its oil tankers.
Iranian government currently allocates money to local insurance companies, to handle domestic oil tankers by itself.