Iran’s Export Credit Agency To Soon Ink MoUs With EU Countries

Export Guarantee Fund of Iran (EGFI) plans to sign several memorandums of understating (MoUs) with some member states of the European Union (EU) in the near future, the EGFI managing director announced.

In line with efforts to facilitate economic relations between Iran and the EU, some MoUs will be signed between the EGFI and some European countries soon, Afrouz Bahrami said, according to the EGFI’s Public Relations Department.

She further pointed to the EU mechanism for trade with Iran (the Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges or INSTEX) and said given the activation of the INSTEX in coming weeks, the MoUs can create new capacities for Iran-EU trade within the framework of the mechanism.

The Iranian official went on to say that the exchange of credit information between Iranian and European companies, cooperation in the collection of claims, reinsurance or joint venture insurance, and technical and educational cooperation are among the topics of the mentioned agreements.

Last month, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said the country has set up a mechanism matching the INSTEX and informed the EU about the issue.

Iran’s mechanism which is called the Special Trade and Finance Institute (STFI) was introduced in March after technical and expert negotiations between Iranian delegations and representatives from three European countries (Britain, France and Germany).

Earlier, the president of the INSTEX had traveled to Tehran to hold talks with senior Iranian officials on ways to make the mechanism operational.

INSTEX is based in Paris and managed by the German banking expert Per Fischer.

The three European countries that are parties to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal are reportedly going to use the channel initially only to sell food, medicine and medical devices in Iran.

In May 2018, the US president pulled his country out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the nuclear deal that was achieved in Vienna in 2015 after years of negotiations among Iran and the Group 5+1 (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France and Germany).

Following the US withdrawal, Iran and the remaining parties launched talks to save the accord.