‘India to open bank branch in Tehran soon’

NEW DELHI: Referring to his recent talks with a high-ranking official of the Central Bank of Iran (CBI), Jawad Zarif said, "The senior official recently declared to me in a letter that a branch of India's UCO bank will be inaugurated in Tehran before the end of the current year."

Zarif made the remarks in New Delhi on Saturday, addressing a joint trade meeting between Iran and India.

Stressing that Iran considers India as an important trade partner, Zarif said Tehran seeks to deepen and expand its friendly relations with New Delhi.

He said that relations between the two countries are developing in different fields of energy, trade and transportation, while “the two countries seek to broaden cooperation in other fields as well”.

India has shown great interest in cooperation and investment in Iran after the removal of sanctions against Tehran.

In May, Tehran, New Delhi and Afghanistan signed an epoch-making agreement in Tehran to establish a transit and transportation corridor.

The agreement known as Chabahar Trilateral Agreement was signed by the three countries' officials in the presence of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, his Afghan counterpart Mohammad Ashraf Ghani and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Tehran.

The trilateral Chabahar agreement will considerably increase making use of Chabahar port that will connect India to Central Asia through Afghanistan and instead will provide Afghanistan’s access to India via sea.

Iran stands the third major supplier of oil to India after Saudi Arabia and Iraq, exporting more than 500,000 bpd crude to the country.

Based on the statistics available, India imported 4,350,000 bpd oil on an average in the first three months of 2016, showing about 500,000 bpd increase in the imports compared to the amount in the same period last year.  India’s crude imports in the period showed decrease of about 40,000 bpd compared to that in the fourth quarter of 2015.