Iran Proposes Trade in Single New Currency Between All Shanghai Pact States

• Iran Proposes Trade in Single New Currency Between All Shanghai Pact States
  by https://sputniknews.com/
  Having recently joined the Eurasia-spanning Shanghai Cooperation Organization, or Shanghai Pact, Iran has proposed that the group’s nine member states introduce a new common currency to facilitate trade.
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  Mehdi Safari, Iran’s Foreign Minister for Economic Diplomacy, announced the request earlier this week, Iran’s Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported, noting the letter had actually been sent almost two months ago.
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  Safari added that Iran would take up the proposal again at the next SCO summit in September, which is being hosted by Uzbekistan. The proposal follows an effort begun in September 2021 to gradually transition to mutual settlements in national currencies as part of developing SCO members’ financial cooperation and as a bulwark against US sanctions.
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  “By extending local currency settlements, SCO countries would lower the risk of being punished by the US via financial means, such as freezing US dollar assets involved in SCO countries’ trade,” Dong Dengxin, director of the Finance and Securities Institute of Wuhan University, told the Global Times.
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  The bloc’s nine members – Iran, China, Russia, India, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Pakistan, and Kazakhstan – each use their own currency, although many of the former Soviet republics continue to see some business in their countries done in Russian rubles. Iran is the organization’s newest member, with its application being unanimously approved last September.
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