Heads of CBI, IMF hold ‘constructive’ meeting in US
Mohammad Reza Farzin, governor of the Central Bank of Iran (CBI), held a “constructive” meeting with Kristalina Georgieva, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington, D.C.
Farzin also expressed satisfaction with the improvement of Iran’s relations with the organization following a period of suspended cooperation, according to cbi.ir.
Iran will still provide the IMF with the required reports of its economic situation and the effectiveness of its monetary and financial policies, he noted.
Farzin expressed hope that Iran’s policies would push down its inflation to 30 percent in the current Iranian calendar year which will end in March 2024.
Iran’s top banker also said Iran cannot provide the IMF the access to certain of its classified economic data because of the U.S. “unilateral and illegal” sanctions
Meanwhile, the IMF’s managing director said the meeting marks the resumption of the interaction between the Iranian central bank with the UN financial agency.
This was the first meeting between a governor of the Iranian central bank and the IMF in decades.
On the sidelines of his meetings with the senior officials of the IMF, Farzin also announced that the Islamic Republic will soon have quick access to $6.7 billion of its financial resources in the IMF.
Currently, Iran has 4.8 billion worth of Special Drawing Rights (SDRs), which is equivalent to $6.7 billion, he said, adding that these resources can be used quickly to help further improve the country’s economic situation.
Farzin added that in different times when the global economy faces recession, the IMF creates liquidity entitled “SDR Allocation, Special Drawing Rights” in order to help its members deal with their economic recession.
Iran’s chief banker also called on the IMF to support the strengthening of international banking programs for the expansion of economic relations and trade exchanges with countries.
The IMF recently published a report in its statistical database pointing to an increase of $141 billion dollars in the Islamic Republic of Iran’s GDP in 2022, introducing Iran’s economy as the 22nd largest economy in the world this year (2023).
Iran has tens of billions of dollar worth of funds in foreign banks that it cannot access due to US sanctions.
The funds are mostly kept in banks in South Korea, Iraq, China, Japan and India where Iran is owed for shipments of crude oil and other energy products that took place before the United States imposed its sanctions on Tehran in 2018.
US sanctions have mostly targeted Iran’s sale of crude oil and its ability to engage in dollar transactions in the global banking system.