“China holding no frozen Iran cash”
Iran’s Petroleum Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said on Tuesday that China is not holding any money related to exports of Iranian crude oil to the country.
“There is no money in China that may belong to Iran but has been ordered frozen [as the result of sanctions],” Zanganeh told reporters in a press conference in Tehran. “Still, it is the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) that should comment on Iran’s overall frozen assets.”
It had been previously reported that an equal of above $20 billion of Iran’s petrodollars are frozen in Chinese banks as the result of sanctions. Accordingly, officials in Tehran said plans are underway to retrieve the amount through Chinese investments in Iranian infrastructure projects including building petrochemical plants, subways, etc.
Media reports earlier said China together with India and Japan hold a total of $100 billion of frozen Iran cash as the result of sanctions.
With the progress in Iran-P5+1 nuclear talks over the past few years, the international banks started to unfreeze Iranians assets that they had been holding as the result of the sanctions. Iran has so far accumulated about $10 billion of its frozen assets in through a series of phased installments.
Zanganeh made the remarks a few days after he returned from Beijing where he held top level talks with Chinese officials over the expansion of mutual cooperation in the area of oil and gas industries.
The Iranian minister further emphasized that China will remain Iran’s strategic partner even after the sanctions against Iran are removed. “The Chinese were concerned that Iran would abandon them once the sanctions are removed,” he said. “They need to know that we will keep our ties with the countries that stayed by our side during the time of sanctions even after the sanctions are lifted”.
Zanganeh had told reporters upon arrival in Tehran from Beijing this past Friday that a new phase of energy cooperation between Iran and China will focus on oil production and development projects to be carried out by Chinese firms in Iran.
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