Clearly in parallel with Russian President Putin’s visit to Tehran this week, the Central Bank of Iran’s (CBI) governor, Ali Salehabadi, announced on Tuesday a new foreign exchange market mechanism of Rial-Ruble trade. The move is part of efforts to decrease dependency on the dollar system and build stronger economic and financial ties between Russia and Iran.
“The launching of trading in the ruble/rial currency pair is an important step in the development of economic relations between Iran and Russia,” Salehabadi said. Making a jab at the U.S.’s attempts to use the dollar as a weapon geopolitically, he elaborated, “Local currencies and bilateral and multilateral monetary agreements will be a suitable means to neutralize the political tools of domination that are global currencies; and in this regard, today, we are witnessing the first and very important step in the field of bilateral monetary agreements between Iran and Russia.”
Salehabadi went on to describe how this was the first step in building a financial infrastructure to allow for this kind of increased growth in trade. “As of today, and gradually in the coming days, applicants for the ruble currency will enter this [foreign exchange] market and easily meet their needs in rubles, and we hope to witness the deepening of and increase in the volume of transactions in the market,” Salehabadi said.
