Grappling with US and EU sanctions that have become progressively tougher over the past 18 months, Iran is increasingly turning to Asia — in particular to China, now its top trading partner.
“Our exchanges with Europe, which used to account for 90 percent of our trade, now represent only 23 to 24 billion of our 200 billion [US] dollars in trade,” Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said after the EU ratcheted up sanctions on Iran last month.
These sanctions, which aim to pressure Tehran to halt its nuclear activities, “have not shrunk the world for us,” he said.
Iran is expected to have exported US$100 billion in oil and US$45 billion in non-oil products over its calendar year, which ends in the middle of next month. Its total imports over the same period will touch about US$55 billion, official forecasts said.
“The sanctions, like those previously, will let us cut all economic links with the West,” the No. 2 officer in Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards, General Hossein Salami, said last month.
The force is one of the primary targets of the sanctions.
The EU, which is imposing a boycott of Iranian oil, had been its second-biggest importer after China, accounting for about 20 percent of the crude the Islamic republic sells abroad.
Iran exports more than 70 percent of its oil to Asian markets, in particular China, India, Japan and South Korea.
China and India alone buy 40 percent of Iranian oil exports. They are resisting the Western sanctions, saying they will observe only UN measures, not unilateral ones.
Iran-China trade jumped more than 50 percent between 2010 and last year, to US$45 billion. The two countries plan for it to grow further, to US$100 billion by 2015.
Exchanges with South Korea grew 61 percent last year, to US$18.5 billion.
While the US and EU sanctions make it more difficult for Iran to pay for euro and US -dollar-denominated goods, and for it to receive petro-dollars, business with Asian customers has an advantage.
“Letters of credit are now being opened in Chinese yuan, Russian rubles, Emirati dirhams and Turkish lira, which are forcing importers to buy their products in those countries,” one Iranian businessman said on condition of anonymity. “Western financial sanctions are going to reinforce trade links with Asian countries, Russia and Turkey.”
A European diplomat in Tehran said late last year that “in 1995, when the Americans imposed their unilateral sanctions on Iran, they in fact boosted trade between Iran and Europe.”
ELECTION DISTRACTION? When attention shifted away from the fight against the militants to politics, losses and setbacks in the battlefield increased, an analyst said Recent clashes in Somalia’s semi-autonomous Jubaland region are alarming experts, exposing cracks in the country’s federal system and creating an opening for militant group al-Shabaab to gain ground. Following years of conflict, Somalia is a loose federation of five semi-autonomous member states — Puntland, Jubaland, Galmudug, Hirshabelle and South West — that maintain often fractious relations with the central government in the capital, Mogadishu. However, ahead of elections next year, Somalia has sought to assert control over its member states, which security analysts said has created gaps for al-Shabaab infiltration. Last week, two Somalian soldiers were killed in clashes between pro-government forces and
Ten cheetah cubs held in captivity since birth and destined for international wildlife trade markets have been rescued in Somaliland, a breakaway region of Somalia. They were all in stable condition despite all of them having been undernourished and limping due to being tied in captivity for months, said Laurie Marker, founder of the Cheetah Conservation Fund, which is caring for the cubs. One eight-month-old cub was unable to walk after been tied up for six months, while a five-month-old was “very malnourished [a bag of bones], with sores all over her body and full of botfly maggots which are under the
BRUSHED OFF: An ambassador to Australia previously said that Beijing does not see a reason to apologize for its naval exercises and military maneuvers in international areas China set off alarm bells in New Zealand when it dispatched powerful warships on unprecedented missions in the South Pacific without explanation, military documents showed. Beijing has spent years expanding its reach in the southern Pacific Ocean, courting island nations with new hospitals, freshly paved roads and generous offers of climate aid. However, these diplomatic efforts have increasingly been accompanied by more overt displays of military power. Three Chinese warships sailed the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand in February, the first time such a task group had been sighted in those waters. “We have never seen vessels with this capability
‘NO INTEGRITY’: The chief judge expressed concern over how the sentence would be perceived given that military detention is believed to be easier than civilian prison A military court yesterday sentenced a New Zealand soldier to two years’ detention for attempting to spy for a foreign power. The soldier, whose name has been suppressed, admitted to attempted espionage, accessing a computer system for a dishonest purpose and knowingly possessing an objectionable publication. He was ordered into military detention at Burnham Military Camp near Christchurch and would be dismissed from the New Zealand Defence Force at the end of his sentence. His admission and its acceptance by the court marked the first spying conviction in New Zealand’s history. The soldier would be paid at half his previous rate until his dismissal
RSS