Iran gets first $32 bn as first sanctions lifted

Iran says it successfully transferred some of the billions of dollars’ worth of frozen overseas assets following the implementation of the nuclear deal with world powers.

Iranian state television quotes the head of Iran’s Central Bank as saying that Tehran transferred funds from banks in Japan and South Korea to other banks in Germany and the United Arab Emirates.

An Iranian woman walks past a Bank Pasargad in the capital Tehran on January 19, 2016. Iran will receive $32 billion of unfrozen assets after sanctions were lifted in a deal with world powers over its nuclear programme, Iranian central bank chief Valiollah Seif said.( AFP / ATTA KENARE)

He does not say how much money was involved in the transfers, though he said the nuclear deal would give Tehran access to $32 billion in overseas assets.

Seif says that $28 billion (25.8 billion euros) would go to the central bank and $4 billion “will be transferred to the state treasury as the share of the government”.

He also pledges to address the parallel exchange rate for Iranian rials and foreign currencies on the black market, which trade 20 percent higher than their official values. The black market rate is 36,000 Iranian rials to the dollar while the official rate is 30,000 rials for a dollar.

–AP, AFP