Tehran, Baku eye deepening of financial interaction

By Azernews

By Nigar Abbasova

Azerbaijan and Iran plan to soon launch discussions on an earlier reached agreement on opening of settlement accounts.

Under the memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed in August 2016, the central banks of the two countries will open settlement accounts to defray the cost of transactions.

Iranian Ambassador to Azerbaijan Javad Jahangirzadeh told Trend that head of Iran’s central bank Valiollah Seif will visit Azerbaijan on February 12 to discuss the issue.

The envoy further said that the talks over the issue have not yielded any results so far, expressing his hope for a positive outcome of the upcoming negotiations.

In the meantime, the sides may also discuss using national currencies (the manat, and the rial) in bilateral trade.  The issue has come in the spotlight following the announcement by the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) to stop using USD as its currency of choice in its financial and foreign exchange reports. 

Moreover, the banking card systems of Iran and Azerbaijan are also expected to be integrated so that citizens of the two countries can use their banking cards in both states. The issue is currently being studied by a special expert commission.

Also, there are opportunities for creating branches of Iranian and Azerbaijani banks in both countries.

The banking sphere is deemed to be one of the most prospective directions for the expansion of the Azerbaijani-Iranian cooperation.

The trade turnover between Azerbaijan and Iran amounted to $210.76 million in 2016, $49.68 million of which accounted for the export of Azerbaijani goods to Iran, according to the State Customs Committee of Azerbaijan.