Page 24 - IRANRptNov19

trade with Turkey says central bank chief
Iran, Russia trade up 24% y/y in seven-month period
Bilateral trade between Iran and EU collapses 76% in H1
The sanctions regime imposed on Iran by the US precludes export and import transactions using the dollar, unless the trading parties are willing to risk sanctions or secondary sanctions. There is also an appetite in countries including Iran, Russia and Turkey to continually work to lower their exposure to the world’s reserve currency, thus lessening their exposure to any future US sanctions and global economic goals pursued by Washington.
CBI governor Abdolnaser Hemmati, known as a technocrat official, told Iranian news agency IRNA on September 25 that Iran does not have any trade in US dollars with Russia and Turkey.
The CBI has twice been hit by sanctions rounds incrementally introduced by the Trump administration since it walked out of the 2015 nuclear deal in May last year. The latest round that hit the central bank came after the September 14 attacks on Saudi oil facilities.
As reported by Fars, and unsurprisingly, the USD in fact reigns supreme in Iran as a safe haven from the instability of the Iranian rial (IRR). Under the sanctions pressure, the rial has depreciated more than threefold in the past two years against major currencies.
Iran’s exports to both Russia and Turkey have declined in 2019. Exports to Russia are to date officially down by around 8%. For Turkey, the drop is calculated as around 37.5%.
Russian exports to Iran, on the other hand, are up by around 40%, with a value of around one billion dollars.
Iran’s bilateral trade with Russia totalled $1.33bn in the first seven months of 2019, marking a 24.6% y/y increase, the​ ​Federal Customs Service of Russia has been cited as saying by Sputnik.
Overall, Iran exported $333.7mn worth of goods to the Russian Federation, representing a fall of 6.2% y/y.
Russian exports to its southern neighbour amounted to $999.3mn, up 39.9% y/y.
Iran’s share in Russia's foreign trade during the period rose to 0.4% from 0.3% in the corresponding seven months of last year.
Russia has lately is mostly exporting agricultural products including grains and meat to Iran.
On August 18 Russia’s Astrakhan Special Economic Zone and Iran’s Anzali Free Zone were reported to be in discussions to strike up a cooperation.
In a meeting between Astrakhan Special ​Economic Zone director Sergei Milushkin​ and officials from Iran, the Russians said they were looking at ways to decrease transit times for products.
Trade between the European Union and Iran in the first half of this year collapsed by 76.01% y/y to reach €2.56bn, according to latest data from the Eurostat European Statistical Office, the ​Financial Tribune ​reported. European companies have mostly mothballed business that was conducted between themselves and Iran since the US last year cranked up the punishing sanctions regime it is directing at Tehran.
Germany, Italy and the Netherlands were Tehran’s biggest European trading partners during the first-half period with bilateral trade values of €777.32mn, €451.63mn and €260.82mn, respectively.
Some European nations appear to have almost ceased all trade with Iran, with the value given in relation to Malta only €147,233, to Slovakia €2.36mn, Greece €21.63mn and Portugal €6.14mn. These countries thus saw 99.96%, 97.79%, 96.85% and 96.45% falls in their trade figure with Iran, respectively. The figures also showed Iran sent €418.31mn worth of commodities to the EU during the six-month period, marking a decline of 93.15% y/y.
24​ IRAN Country Report​ November 2019 www.intellinews.com