TEHRAN - Negotiations are ongoing between Iran and Afghanistan for sidelining US dollar in bilateral transactions.

The deputy governor of the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) said that talks are ongoing between the two countries for the implementation of “offshore rial’ in Afghanistan.

Mohsen Karimi pointed out that ‘offshore rial’ is used with the aim of supporting the economic activists and exporters of the private sector of the country.

The project of ditching the US dollar and using rial in foreign trade exchanges has always been followed up by the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran to neutralize sanctions, he underlined.

Earlier, CBI Governor Mohammad Reza Farzin had announced that using the ‘offshore rial’ in trade with Russia, Afghanistan, and Iraq is on the agenda, adding that the idea of ditching the US dollar has produced positive results.

Iran and Afghanistan plan to increase their trade to $10 billion within 3 to 5 years, according to the Taliban's Minister of Commerce and Industry.

Economic Adviser of the Iranian President’s Special Envoy in Afghanistan Affairs Mohammad-Mehdi Javanmard-Ghassab, has said that according to the announcement of the Taliban's Minister of Commerce and Industry, the trade between the two countries will reach from the current $1.6 billion to $10 billion.

This Iranian official made the remarks in early November 2023, on the sidelines of the signing ceremony of a memorandum of economic cooperation between Iran and Afghanistan.

He said that this amount had previously reached $3 billion, but both sides want to increase the volume of trade between the two countries to the mentioned amount in the announced period.

Of course, there are certainly many variables in this field, including the need to increase production in Afghanistan, the Economic Adviser of the Iranian President’s Special Envoy in Afghanistan Affairs emphasized.

Senior officials from Iran and Afghanistan have explored ways of expanding economic ties between the two countries to increase trade exchanges to a target of $10 billion.

Iran’s capital Tehran hosted an Iran-Afghanistan Joint Economic Committee meeting on November 4, for the first time after the Taliban came to power.

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