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The continued Sri Lanka and Iran ‘tea-for-oil’ barter settlement is now making sturdy progress and Sri Lanka has already settled over USD 20 million to Iran.
“This settlement was to settle a complete of USD 250 million for purchases made by Ceylon Petroleum Company (CPC) for oil imported from Iran in 2012”, stated Chairman Sri Lanka Tea Board (SLTB) Niraj De Mel in a particular interview with ‘Each day Information Enterprise’.
In a bid to avoid wasting draining of overseas change from Sri Lanka to service the excessive petroleum imports the then Minister of Finance, Mangala Samaraweera and Dr. Romesh Pathirana talked to Nationwide Iranian Oil Firm of Iran officers since 2019 to commerce tea as a substitute of paying in USD when buying gas to guard native foreign exchange reserves.
The barter was agreed in 2021 for oil imported in 2012 nevertheless because of the financial disaster this deal was solely signed final 12 months.
“Since then we’ve made very sturdy progress and as much as December 2023 we’ve settled round USD 20 million.”
Explaining the modalities of the settlement he stated that the native tea exporters to Iran receives a commission in Sri Lanka rupees by the Ceylon Petroleum Company.
SLTB might be settling funds to Sri Lanka tea exporters upon affirmation of tea consignments are shipped to Iran by the tea exporters. That is scrutinized by means of a acknowledged Audit Agency.
“The settlement is to ship USD 5 million value of tea every month to Iran for 48 months.”
De Mel stated that with Iran dealing with a chilly local weather within the subsequent few months we count on the demand for native tea to extend.
“Therefore we’ve requested the Minister of Energy and Power Kanchana Wijesekera to extend the month-to-month USD 5 allocation (equal to Sri Lankan rupees) made by them to native tea exporters. We’ve got requested the Minister to extend this to USD 10 million and he has responded to this request positively.”
De Mel stated that although there are some worldwide restrictions imposed on Iran this ‘tea-for-oil’ barter settlement doesn’t violate it.
“This scheme is not going to violate any UN or US sanctions since tea has been categorized as a meals merchandise beneath humanitarian grounds whereas not one of the black listed Iranian banks might be concerned within the equation.”
The full income realized for the interval January – December 2023 from tea exports was USD 1.31 billion in contrast with USD 1.27 Billion recorded for the interval January to December 2022.
The rise of tea exports was USD 1.31 billion in comparison with the identical interval in 2022.
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