Iran to use banned dollars to import goods
Iran said on Saturday that it plans to use billions of dollars of its blocked assets that are expected to be released after the removal of sanctions against the country for imports of essential goods.
“It is not logical to bring all the money that will be released into the country,” Valiollah Seif, the governor of the Central Bank of Iran (CBI), has been quoted by the media as saying. “We will try to use the released cash for imports of the required goods.”
Seif said the CBI will have an immediate access to around $30 billion of blocked Iranian assets that have been frozen in different overseas accounts as a result of the sanctions.
The money, he added, can be collectively deposited in a safe account and then used as required, IRNA reported.
Seif’s comments came as Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif was engaged in final stages of talks with the US Secretary of State John Kerry in Vienna over the removal of the anti-Iran sanctions.
He had earlier said that the CBI has started the proceedings for the much-awaited unfreezing of Iran’s frozen assets.
The official further added that unfreezing the dollars to Iran as well as the opening of blocked banking channels will be positive news for Iran and will accordingly show its effects on the Iranian economy.
In July, Seif said that at least $23 billion of the total blocked assets belong to the CBI. He said $6-$7 billion in government revenues from sales of crude oil to different international clients have also been blocked due to sanctions, adding that the amount will be provided to the administration of President Hassan Rouhani once released – again as arranged between Iran and the P5+1.
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