Mehdi Rahimian, a participant of the recent Gaidar Forum in Moscow held at the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, and a PhD student of State University of Management shared his views with Invest Foresight, a main media partner of the Forum.
As he specifically noted, “Some countries impose sanctions on other nations driven by an irrational intent to stop their development. It is very important to understand how these nations can develop their economies in such a situation. Iran was under sanctions for many years and hence there was no presence of international payment systems in Iran. So Iran designed bilateral payment systems. The first country to join such arrangements was Armenia, and the second Turkey.”
As Mr Rahimian argued, “Similar arrangements can also be made with Russia to thus further develop economic relationships, improve business possibilities and strengthen financial independence of the two countries. In bilateral dealings, they can over time abandon US dollars in settlements between banks, businesses and individuals”. In a while, such arrangements can expand and become an alternative international payment system, he concluded.