Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 8
By Khalid Kazimov – Trend:
An Indian diplomat has said that his country has settled all of its debts to Iran over the previous oil sales.
Indian Ambassador to Iran, Saurabh Kumar, said that the volume of India’s imports from Iran is more than its exports, adding there is no outstanding debt to Iran over the oil deals, ILNA news agency reported.
Earlier on Feb. 7, Mohammad-Baqer Nobakht, the Iranian government’s spokesperson, said that some countries such as India have probably delayed settling their debts to Iran despite the fact that the Islamic Republic’s frozen assets have been released since the implementation of the nuclear deal last January.
The oil ministry of India had earlier announced that his country owed $2.5 billion to Iran.
Iran is among India’s top oil suppliers as the world's third biggest oil consumer bought about 473,000 barrels per day (bpd) of oil from Iran to feed expanding refining capacity, up from 208,300 bpd in 2015.
The non-oil trade turnover between the two countries stood at $3.9 billion over the first ten months of the current Iranian calendar year (starting March 21).
According to Iranian Trade Promotion Organization India was the sixth top goods exporter to Iran with $1.59 billion worth of exports (indicating a fall by 16 percent) in the 10-month period.
The value of India’s non-oil imports from Iran in the meantime stood at $2.312 billion.