TEHRAN - The chairman of the Iran-Japan Joint Trade Committee has said the senior Iranian officials are currently negotiating ways for unblocking Iran’s frozen oil money in Japan, ILNA reported.

According to Bahram Shakouri, the Iranian ambassador to Japan and President Reisi are seriously following up on the issue to reach an agreement with the Japanese side for the Islamic Republic to be able to use its assets in some way.

“Our blocked money in Japan is about $3 billion, and the new government is working to release this money. Our advice was that the blocked money could be used to purchase covid-19 vaccine, the vaccine was bought, but I do not know if the frozen assets were used to do so,” Shakouri told ILNA.

The official noted that the government must take all the necessary measures to free the country’s frozen funds, for example, the money can be used for the imports of machinery, equipment, and technological products from the Asian country.

“Japan is a country that has all the up-to-date world technologies. The country has everything we were looking for in Europe and the United States, so if we can import equipment, machinery, and technology using our blocked money, it can be a great help to the country. For example, mining machinery in the field of drilling and exploration can be imported from Japan.”

He further mentioned the level of trade between the two countries and said: "The volume of our trade with Japan is so small that can actually be ignored. In some cases, we have exchanges with Japan, but because we cannot trade directly due to the U.S. sanctions, this happens through third countries, so there are no exact statistics.”

“Our trade with Japan has significantly fallen as our oil exports have been halted. The export of our other products has also decreased due to sanctions, and our imports from this country, mostly including machinery, have the same trend; In fact, other countries such as China have replaced Japan in this regard,” he said.

EF/MA