As Iran is moving toward the much-awaited removal of international sanctions, the government has ordered bankers to be ready for the imminent opening up to the international economy.
Valiollah Seif, the governor of the Central Bank of Iran (CBI), in a meeting with top bankers on Saturday emphasized that they should take speedy actions to prepare for the removal of Iran sanctions, Press TV reported.
In the meeting, Seif said that Iran should prepare its banking infrastructure for post-sanctions activities and also improve their standards to better operate once the sanctions are lifted.
No date has yet been officially set on when the sanctions against Iran will be lifted. Nevertheless, officials in Tehran have already underlined that they expect this to happen in the coming weeks.
Under the current sanctions regime, Iran’s banks have been effectively shut out of the global monetary system. This will end with the removal of the sanctions when the banks, in addition to other benefits, will be able to transfer money without limits in and out of Iran. A key step to this will be for Iran to reconnect to the SWIFT financial-transactions system. Nevertheless, early signs have already appeared that such connections have already been established.
Iran’s Petrochemical Commercial Company (IPCC) announced on Saturday that it has been able to receive payments for exports of petrochemical products through an international bank in Spain.
The IPCC said this has been made possible through a so-called ‘escrow account agreement’ with the Spanish bank which has now officially opened the channel for banking transactions for export activities that had been blocked for five years as a result of sanctions.
