Top representatives of Central Bank of Iran visit Minsk

Vice Governor of the Central Bank of the Islamic Republic of Iran Reza Raei held talks with First Deputy Prime Minister of Belarus Uladzimir Syamashka on Tuesday.

During the meeting Syamashka said that absence of “the lack of banking instruments, a system of mutual payments” and this “hampers the development of economic relations and joint projects”.

According to him, the Belarusian side is ready to discuss the payments in national currencies, the operation of the bank with Iranian capital which has been set up in Belarus, the prospects of setting up another Iranian bank.

Besides, he stated that Belarus hopes for more active implementation of Belarus-Iran joint project to extract oil in the Jofeir field. Syamashka called the Jofeir project as a strategic one.

He noted that for a year and a half Belarus has been realizing a similar project in Venezuela. It was launched at a later date, but there are certain results already.

“There is certain progress as regards the Jofeir project and we will discuss today our next steps,” he said.

For his part, Reza Raei said that the issues related to financing of the Jofeir project have been settled. The funding will be provided by the Central Bank of Iran.

Uladzimir Syamashka said that Iranian companies are implementing a wide range of projects in Belarus. The Belarusian authorities decided to allot a land plot near Minsk for the Iranian company Keison to construct a transportation and logistics centre. The construction will be launched in May-June 2009. Vladimir Semashko informed that a draft decree was elaborated to “offer Keison company preferable terms of doing business.”