TEHRAN, January 7 The national wealth funds of Russia and Iran plan to create joint investment committees to implement various projects in the oil and gas, petrochemical, pharmaceutical and a number of other areas, a member of the executive board said Iranian National Development Fund Hossein Ayvazlu, reports IRNA.
“It was decided… to form joint investment committees between the two national wealth funds of Iran and Russia and consider the presented projects… Iran will invest 50% and the Russian side will invest 50%,” Ayvazlu said.
According to him, Tehran and Moscow have been cooperating in this area for a long time, holding meetings and exchanging agreements. He emphasized that “at these meetings, models of cooperation and mechanisms of interaction were approved, and we are waiting for the approval of the board of trustees of the National Welfare Fund of Russia.” The priorities for Iran, Ayvazlu says, are projects in the oil, petrochemical, gas and pharmaceutical fields, but projects in other areas, for example, in the field of high technology, are also subject to discussion.
In addition to Russia, a member of the executive board of the National Development Fund of Iran emphasizes, negotiations were also held with Oman and Saudi Arabia and agreements were signed with a number of African countries, while as for the latter, Iran has already won one of the tenders, a depositary bank has been identified, and 100 million euros have been allocated . Ayvazlu noted that the mission of the National Development Fund of Iran is cooperation with similar funds of other countries, and in this regard, funds of neighboring countries have priority: for example, Iran has signed agreements on the creation of joint funds with seven of the ten countries of the Economic Cooperation Organization that have funds national welfare.
The head of Iran's central bank, Mohammad Farzin, said in late December that a currency agreement between Iran and Russia, which will allow trade in rubles and rials, will be signed in the first quarter of 2024. In the last week of 2023, Farzin made a two-day visit to Moscow, where he met with the head of the Bank of Russia, Elvira Nabiullina. It is noted that Farzin and Nabiullina, following the meeting, agreed to open a credit line in the amount of 6.5 billion rubles for Iran to import necessary goods from Russia. As the Tasnim agency reports with reference to the Central Bank of Iran, the Iranian bank Sepah opened the first foreign letter of credit for importing goods from Russia after the US Department of Justice restored the sanctions regime against the Islamic Republic.