Minister for resumption of banking ties with Iran

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Minister of State for Finance Rana Muhammad Afzal has expressed optimism about resumption of banking ties between Islamabad and Tehran at the earliest.

In an interview with IRNA, he said he was focusing on banking ties with Iran so that the two friendly neighbours could have a better trade relationship. “Certainly, Iran wants to improve relations with Pakistan, and Pakistan too is interested to improve trade relations with Iran,” he added.

The banking channel needs to be developed soon so the countries have banks on both sides to open letters of credits and do some business, the minister of state said. Iran’s ambassador has informed the minister that sanctions did not cover many types of trade between Iran and Pakistan. “So we are working on this very keenly with a focus on how we can improve our trade ties with Iran,” Rana Afzal added. He said Pakistan was trying to get some private banks interested in opening branches and taking business from each other. The minister urged for exchanging more business delegations and to facilitate at the government level to increase bilateral trade.

Pakistan could export textiles and food items, including rice to Iran, which has petroleum products, the minister said, and added that regional trade was always better trade.