Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 10
Trend:
Russia and Iran should use the currencies of the third countries, where Iran supplies its oil, to develop the economic relations, Andrey Lugansky, Russian trade representative in Iran, told RIA Novosti.
While speaking of the difficulties in the supply of grain from Russia to Iran, he said that there are two major problems.
"The first problem is quite high Russian prices," he said. "The second problem is that Iranian traders need rubles to purchase grain in Russia."
"The end consumer of grain in Iran pays rials to the trader," he said. "The firm that would like to buy grain must appeal to the Central Bank of Iran or a commercial bank. Iranian banks have many currencies of the third-countries: Chinese yuan, South Korean won, Japanese yen, and others, because Iranian oil and petrochemicals are supplied to these countries."
"But they are not supplied to Russia," he said. "Thus, Iranian banks have few rubles to convert rials into rubles to purchase grain."