TEHRAN – The managing director of Iran’s Special Trade and Finance Instrument for trade with Europe (STFI), called SATMA in Persian, said the company is moving into the trial phase and is ready to operate in coordination with INSTEX.

As reported by the portal of Iran Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture (ICCIMA), Ali Asghar Nouri said that the company is currently trying to test the export and import payment and transfer channels.

“In the first phase, some traders who are directly exporting to Europe have been asked to conduct their business through SATMA,” he added.

The official further noted that since the establishment of Iran’s mirror company for INSTEX, all necessary measures have been taken for total compliance with international standards.
Last week, Nouri had announced that with the establishment of the coordinating company to INSTEX, now the ball is in Europe’s court to make it operational.

Rejecting the idea that implementation of EU’s trade mechanism has been postponed due to some issues related to the Iranian side, Nouri stressed that according to the agreements, Iran is not in charge of taking measures to implement INSTEX and whatever has been done sought to facilitate the procedure for the European side and has been an aid to them.

“Iran’s STFI was established to ease INSTEX implementation and if the financial instrument is decided to become operational as of today, there will be no problem with getting it operational in Iran,” he said.

One year ago, U.S. President Donald Trump formally pulled the United States out of the nuclear deal that was struck between Iran on the one side and the U.S., Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany on the other.

Since then, Trump has introduced economic sanctions on Iran and has been increasing pressures on the country’s economic relations with its trade partners.

EF/MA