BAKU, Azerbaijan, Jan.5
Trend:
Iran's money blocked in Iraqi banks could negatively affect future interactions between the two countries, board member of Iran-Iraq Joint Chamber of Commerce Hamid Hosseini Nayeb told Trend in an interview.
"In my opinion it's unlikely that specific work has been done to return Iran's money, the corruption in Iraq prevents any healthy economic action," he said.
"The government should do something and it has become very difficult, high ranking Iraqi officials should have serious will to return this money to Iran," Nayeb said.
"Iran's money in Iraq is related to electricity and gas exports, Iran's export to Iraq still continues so the amount of money is changing, the money is kept in various Iraqi accounts," said the official.
Nayeb also said that the Governor of Central Bank of Iran Abdolnasser Hemmati had stated that some $8 million of Iran's money is in Iraq.
"There is no interest rate in Iraqi banking system since savings of Iraqi people of Iraq is not kept in form of bank deposits, so paying the interest rate is not common and it's unlikely that payment of interest rate has been noted in Iran's agreements with Iraq," he said.
"The governor of the Central Bank of Iran has visited Iraq and there was an agreement with the Iraqi Foreign Ministry to unblock Iran's money, but it didn't result in any actions, although the Iraqis have repeatedly stated that they would cooperate," he said.
"In case Iraq releases Iran's money, the trade between two countries would change drastically," he said.
"Iran could also purchase its needed commodity by using unblocked money," he said.
"Iran annually imports $8 to $10 billion necessary commodity the money for purchase of goods could be provided from the country's gas export revenues to Iraq," he said.