Syria and Iran to Open a Joint Bank for Bilateral Trade, Finally

Syria and Iran have agreed to open a new joint bank to facilitate the bilateral trade between the two countries, new joint free zones were also included in the agreement.

Visiting Iranian minister for roads and urban development Rostam Qassimi who also chairs the Iranian side in the Iranian Syrian Economic Committee tasked to improve the bilateral trade and economic cooperation stated that a new joint bank was approved to be established with the Syrian side which also includes numerous branches in both countries. The minister added that both parties agreed to establish free trade zones as a new venue for bilateral trade work.

Iranian businesses would be seeking to increase their products in Syria with an initial focus on the agricultural machinery sector, the Iranian minister concluded in his statement carried by the Iranian Fars News agency.

Both Syria and Iran are under the US and European blockade despite neither of the countries being under international blockade or sanctions approved by the United Nations Security Council, Syria was never under such sanctions, and Iran was removed from this regime of sanctions upon the signing of the nuclear agreement in 2015 dubbed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action JCPOA.

Both countries, Syria and Iran, are under non-stop attempts by US-led NATO and stooges to topple their governments and steal their resources based on lies and fabrications by the same parties that lied to invade and destroy Iraq, lied to invade and destroy Libya, lied to invade and destroy Somalia, lied to invade and destroy a host of other countries mainly with the latest trend of lies is to promote freedoms and democracies we’ve seen that the USA and its other NATO stooges lack its basics when the ‘need arises’ with more authoritarian control while failing miserably in their health sectors.

Being cut off the US-dominated SWIFT banking money exchange system, Syria and Iran needed to come up with alternative solutions to facilitate the bilateral trade, the same applies, though to a much lesser extent, to Russia, China, and many countries across the world, skipping trades in the US dollar is one major step the world is pushing for and which leaders like Gaddafi paid their lives when they tried to promote it a decade ago, the overuse of the US regime of sanctions using the dollar being the internationally-agreed upon trade instrument as its main tool to impose selective sanctions to pressure sovereign countries into submission has united the world against it and have already moved a long way in ditching it in bilateral trades. A joint bank with its internal system used for exchange and clearing is one of the most viable methods to facilitate trades without the need to resort to the US currency.

Syria has also signed a memorandum of understanding with China to join the Chinese Road and Belt initiative last week, concluding China’s trade route extension toward the Mediterranean through West Asia despite the obstacles continuously laid by the USA and its axis of evil camp.

Iran is one of Syria’s smaller trading partners despite the massive and strategical cooperation in many fields including the military and political cooperation, ironically, Syria trades in much higher volumes with countries that have joined the US-led war of terror and war of attrition against its people, while its trade with its partners in defending humanity and standing up to the US hegemonic aggression remains very low, this needs to be fixed, one of the ways to do so is a joint bank, and another is a free trade zone, and joint corporations and research and development projects need to follow.