Iran and Turkey are exploring avenues of replacing dollar and euro with their national currencies in bilateral trade exchanges, said Turkish energy minister. Taner Yildiz said Turkey is planning a money exchange structure with Iran which will cut the usage of US dollar as much as possible and develop trade with the two countries’ national currencies, Fars News Agency reported on Sunday. The minister’s statement came at a time when Iran is seeking opportunities in the Turkish banking sector. Turkey has already taken steps to trade with local currencies with a number of countries including Russia and China.
Speaking on broadcaster CNBC-e last June, Yildiz said Turkey has already been using gold in Iranian trade. Iran, alone, bought gold worth $1.2 billion in April. “Annually we use between 80 and 82 tons of gold (in trade with Iran).” Turkey aims at increasing gold production to 34-36 tons a year in the short run from the current 24 tons, the minister added. “Along with the private companies, the public sector also contributes to this.”
Trade between Turkey and Iran has risen sharply over the past decade. Turkey was Iran’s fifth-largest oil customer in 2011, buying around 200,000 barrels per day, 30 percent of its total imports and more than 7 percent of Iran’s oil exports.
Iran and Turkey have in recent years increased their cooperation in various fields of economy, security, trade, education, energy and culture. The two sides have exchanged several politico-economic delegations during the last few months. Earlier, Turkish President Abdullah Gul in a meeting with Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani underlined the need to remove obstacles to further expansion of economic ties with Iran and boost trade cooperation between the two countries. “The level of economic and trade cooperation between the two countries is not appropriate in view of the age-old ties between the two nations and we should remove the obstacles to the development of mutual cooperation between Iran and Turkey,” Gul said at the time.