Iran banks seek to sidestep US curbs / Russian ruble could be used in oil trade deals in Iran

[CGowen]

Iran’s first investment banks will start operating next month, as part of Tehran’s strat­egy to open new banking channels and also circumvent US restrictions on its financial sector.

The three banks will also play a key role in Iran’s plans to step up aggressively on the privatisation of national industries including steel, banking, shipping, airlines and telecommunications, said Heidari Kord Zangeneh, deputy finance minister and head of the Iranian privatisation organisation.

“We are going to activate our private sector and our private banks. . . in order to fight against these (US) sanctions,” Mr Kord Zangeneh told the Financial Times.

The banks, called Amin, Novin and Pasargad, are run by consortia that include privately owned investment companies, some of which are affiliated to private banks, he said.

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http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a543f458-d809-11dc-98f7-0000779fd2ac,dwp_uuid=be75219e-940a-11da-82ea-0000779e2340.html




Russian ruble could be used in oil trade deals in Iran - envoy

MOSCOW, February 15 (RIA Novosti) - The Russian ruble could be used as a payment instrument for deals on an Iranian oil exchange, the Islamic Republic's ambassador to Moscow said on Friday.

"Possibly in the future, we'll be able to use the ruble, Russia's national currency, in our operations," Gholamreza Ansari said, adding that the Islamic Republic was currently busy launching a new oil trade exchange.

The Islamic Republic's oil minister, Gholam-Hossein Nozari, earlier said that Iran would launch on February 27 a commodities exchange for oil, petrochemicals and natural gas on the Persian Gulf island of Kish and that all financial settlements would be made in Iran's national currency, the rial.


http://en.rian.ru/world/20080215/99314908.html

[nightrider767]

1. As US rhetoric to Iran increases....

This is going to get interesting.

Sadly the Iranian oil Borse has not made the news so people will have little perspective....

[A HERETIC I AM]

2. News is the real key.

For any market like this to be truly successful and gain the confidence of investors or participants, the free flow of accurate information is absolutely paramount.

If a person thinks this market will really make a dent on the world stage, you have to ask yourself if you are confident the news services in Iran will be unbiased and accurate. The price of oil is set based on many, many factors. If major international oil trading firms don't have 100% confidence they will get accurate information from the Iranians and the Russians, they'll just continue to trade where they are now. Why take the risk, otherwise?