Tehran, Iran, July 2
Trend:
Iran–Iraq financial channel is now operational, and Iran's exports to Iraq are ten times more than the exports to Europe, said head of Iran-Iraq Chamber of Commerce.
"Iran-Iraq financial channel has been created based on negations of the governor of Central Bank of Iran with his Iraqi counterpart; and during the financial operations, Iranian rial and Iraqi dinar will be used instead of the US dollar," Yahya Al-e Es’haq said, Trend reports citing ILNA.
"The mechanism has been used two or three times on the occasions related to debt payment to MAPNA Company that exports electricity to Iraq. The negotiations are ongoing with private sector. In theory, the system is operational, while in practice we are solving some remaining problems to fully operate it," he said.
"The money transfer in the financial channel is based on cooperation of banking systems the two countries," he added.
In his words, Iran’s exports in early months of current Iranian year (started March 21, 2019) had increased, although the volume is less than in the last year due to flood in March.
Speaking about the trade between two countries, he went to say, "Last Iranian year [started March 21, 2018] Iran exported goods and technical services worth $13 billion to Iraq , that was ten times more than Iran's exports to European countries, which amounted to $1 billion."
"Iran's cooperation with Iraq is including civil projects worth $2.5 billion that are underway. Moreover, Iran has won a tender to invest $4 billion in Iraq. We can increase the transaction target with Iraq to $20 billion," he added.