Switzerland Says Its Firms Ready to Engage in Trade with Iran
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – A senior official at the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) said many companies have voiced readiness to engage in trade with Iran following the opening of a financial channel earlier this week.
Many companies and businesses have declared their readiness to engage in trade of humanitarian items with Iran since the Swiss channel was launched earlier this week, Erwin Bollinger said
The Swiss Humanitarian Trade Arrangement (SHTA) was launched on Thursday with a first trade for delivery of cancer and organ transplant drugs to Iran worth 2.3 million euros ($2.54m).
He added that Swiss authorities were “proud and happy” about the channel and that a wider-ranging version to allow Swiss firms to conduct safe business in Iran would soon also be ready, Swissinfo reported.
The Swiss channel may even outpace the Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges (INSTEX), a long-overdue mechanism the E3 (France, Britain, and Germany) intended to launch to facilitate trade with Tehran despite the US sanctions.
The launching of INSTEX was a small part of Europe’s commitment to compensate for the US withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which was supposed to end anti-Iran sanctions in return for certain curbs in the country’s peaceful nuclear program.
