...

Iran's trade to be affected by FATF measures

Finance Materials 24 February 2020 12:17 (UTC +04:00)
Iran's trade to be affected by FATF measures

TEHRAN, Iran, Feb. 24

Trend:

Iran's ties and trade with partners and neighbor is effected with being blasted by the FATF, economist Mahmoud Jamsaz.

Mahmoud Jamsaz discussed the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) blacklisting Iran in an interview with Trend.

"When Donald Trump left the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and re-imposed sanctions against Iran, Europe could no longer convince the US to be more lenient; British Prime, German Chancellor and the French president separately negotiated over the issue with Trump, but the US president did not accept their suggestion and even insisted the Europe would leave JCPOA," the expert said.

"The European signatories to the deal decided to preserve their prestige in political ties with Iran. Meanwhile, the volume of foreign trade between Iran and the Europe is not comparable to trade volume between the US and Europe, so Europe sacrificed its trade with Iran," Jamsaz added.

"These issues caused Europe to suggest the special purpose vehicle SPV to purchase Iran's oil products that was not successful. Then they offered INSTEX mechanism to establish a €15 million fund for Iran's trade, but no EU member state agreed to establish the fund in their country," the economic said. "However, Europe has set conditions to implement INSTEX that included complying with FATF related bills in anti-laundering and support of terrorism convention, but they were not approved by the parliament. Thus, after the deadline on February 20, Iran was blacklisted."

"It should be noted that even if all the FATF related bills would have been approved by Iran, this would not have effect, since currently, the nuclear deal has lost its importance and Iran has expanded its missile activities," he said. "If this has happened, Iran could have transparency in financial transactions, but currently, but Iran is currently similar to an isolated island that is becoming far away from other countries."

"The conservatives and hardliners were against transparency of Iranian accounts. It is not even clear how part of the government revenues to be allocated for welfare of people is used," said the expert.

"Iran's being blacklisted by FATF and this would certainly have adverse effects. There is the possibility that China and Russia would limit their ties with Iran. While Europe would intensify the sanctions, we would face growing lack of foreign currency, which make the situation worse," he added.

"If the countermeasures are taken, fewer banking channels would remain between Iran and other countries including China, Russia, Turkey, Iraq, Afghanistan and Azerbaijan and others," Jamsaz said.

Tags:
Latest

Latest