Iran to launch counterpart to EU trade channel soon

Iran will soon set up its part of a new payments vehicle, devised to bypass US sanctions, Abdolnaser Hemmati, the governor of Central Bank of Iran (CBI), said.

“During the talks that my colleagues had with the representatives of the three European countries (Britain, France and Germany) and the president of INSTEX at the CBI office in Tehran, they gave a full description of the Iranian mechanism in line with the European mechanism,” Hemmati said late.

“We are waiting for practical measures from Europe,” the official added.

Hemmati noted that the launch of the Iranian trade counterpart to INSTEX known as STFI does not mean that Tehran will wait for the European payments vehicle to go operational.

He said Iran will continue to trade with its partners through specific methods it has designed to get around sanctions.

INSTEX is based in Paris and is managed by the German banking expert Per Fischer who was in Tehran for talks this week.

“Important step to discuss with Iranian counterparts how to make the Eu-iran trade mechanism operational!” the French Embassy in Tehran said on its official Twitter account in reference to the move.

The three European countries that are signatories to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal along with Russia and China established INSTEX for non-dollar trade with Iran in response to the US withdrawal in May from the landmark 2015 nuclear agreement which lifted international sanctions against the Islamic Republic in exchange for restrictions on its atomic activities.

INSTEX is conceived as a way to help match Iranian oil and gas exports with purchases of EU goods.

The US has criticized the trade mechanism and demanded that the EU withdraw from the nuclear agreement.

Tasnim and Reuters contributed to this story.