InfoAnda - Barter, other steps help Iran firms beat sanctions |

Pakistanis angry over detentions in Times Sq. case
Monday, May 24, 2010
ISLAMABAD – Relatives of three men detained by Pakistan for alleged links to the suspect in the attempted Times Square bombing say the men are innocent.
They

Taiwan denies boycotting Australian film festival
Thursday, August 6, 2009

AFP - Thursday, August 6TAIPEI (AFP) - - Taiwan's Beijing-friendly government on Wednesday denied boycotting an Australian film festival amid a row over the e

Merkel's support dips, regional ally resigns International
Thursday, September 3, 2009

By Sarah Marsh and Noah Barkin

BERLIN (Reuters) - Chancellor Angela Merkel suffered a double blow on Thursday as a senior party ally in east German

Minister seeks closure of anti-Berlusconi websites
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
ROME (AFP) - – The Italian government moved Tuesday to close down Internet sites encouraging further violence against Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who

Asian markets mixed after Wall Street rally
Wednesday, March 18, 2009

By ELAINE KURTENBACH,AP Business Writer AP - Wednesday, March 18SHANGHAI - Asia's stock market rally seemed to be running out of steam Wednesday, despite an

A123 says new battery technology to make EVs cheaper | | 12 June 2012
Cyclone halts oil and gas in Oman | | 4 June 2010
11 trapped in China coal mine flood | 4 June 2010

Adviser: Obama waits on finished health care bill | 19 October 2009

Forum Views () Forum Replies ()

Read more with google mobile : Barter, other steps help Iran firms beat sanctions |

Edition: U.S. Africa Arabic Argentina Brazil Canada China France Germany India Italy Japan Latin America Mexico Russia Spain United Kingdom Home Business Business Home Economy Technology Media Small Business Legal Deals Earnings Social Pulse Business Video The Freeland File Markets Markets Home U.S. Markets European Markets Asian Markets Global Market Data Indices M&A Stocks Bonds Currencies Commodities Futures Funds peHUB World World Home U.S. Brazil China Euro Zone Japan Mexico Russia India Insight World Video Reuters Investigates Decoder Politics Politics Home Election 2012 Issues 2012 Candidates 2012 Tales from the Trail Political Punchlines Supreme Court Politics Video Tech Technology Home MediaFile Science Tech Video Tech Tonic Social Pulse Opinion Opinion Home Chrystia Freeland John Lloyd Felix Salmon Jack Shafer David Rohde Bernd Debusmann Nader Mousavizadeh Lucy P. Marcus David Cay Johnston Bethany McLean Edward Hadas Hugo Dixon Ian Bremmer Mohamed El-Erian Lawrence Summers Susan Glasser The Great Debate Steven Brill Jack & Suzy Welch Breakingviews Equities Credit Private Equity M&A Macro & Markets Politics Breakingviews Video Money Money Home Tax Break Global Investing MuniLand Unstructured Finance Linda Stern Mark Miller John Wasik James Saft Analyst Research Alerts Watchlist Portfolio Stock Screener Fund Screener Personal Finance Video Money Clip Investing 201 Life Health Sports Arts Faithworld Business Traveler Entertainment Oddly Enough Lifestyle Video Pictures Pictures Home Reuters Photographers Full Focus Video Reuters TV Reuters News Article Comments (1) Full Focus Editor's choice Our best photos from the last 24 hours. Full Article Images of January Best photos of the year 2011 Follow Reuters Facebook Twitter RSS YouTube Read Microsoft unveils Windows 8 for public test 12:18am EST Boeing delivers biggest 747 to secret VIP buyer 28 Feb 2012 Romney survives in Michigan, eyes on Super Tuesday | 9:36am EST Banks gorge on 530 billion euros of ECB funds | 8:00am EST Ohio school shooter confesses as death toll climbs | 28 Feb 2012 Discussed 109 Taliban urge Afghans to attacks Westerners 104 Analysis: Can United States defuse Koran burning uproar? 80 Putin praises Cold War moles for stealing U.S. nuclear secrets Watched Sacha Baron Cohen gets a warning from Oscar Fri, Feb 24 2012 U.S. Navy kicks off rail gun tests with a bang Tue, Feb 28 2012 Dual victories for Romney Tue, Feb 28 2012 Barter, other steps help Iran firms beat sanctions Tweet Share this Email Print Related News Clinton: Japan, EU working to comply with Iran sanctions 11:17am EST Oil gains on cheap ECB loans, Iran fears 10:16am EST UPDATE 5-U.S. targets Dubai bank over Iran dealings 10:10am EST U.S., Saudi maneuver to contain Iran oil market threat Fri, Feb 24 2012 Iran has expanded sensitive nuclear work: U.N. agency Fri, Feb 24 2012 Analysis & Opinion What the Euro means for Asia When 500 billion euros no longer pops eyes Related Topics World » By Daniel Fineren DUBAI | Wed Feb 29, 2012 9:03am EST DUBAI (Reuters) - Iranian firm AHT exports millions of dollars worth of nuts and dried fruit from Iran each month but Western financial sanctions mean it gets little money in return. Instead it is paid with other goods, such as cardboard boxes and metal cans from China. "Most of our business right now is like this. No money is involved in the process," Mohammad Amin, managing director of the pistachio and raisin exporter, told Reuters at an international food industry show in Dubai this month. "We import the goods, sell the goods to the local market, get the money from the local market, and then pay my staff and my farmers. "No money is circulating -- it's like thousands of years ago," Amin said between negotiations with prospective buyers over bowls brimming with pistachios. Last year AHT's exports totaled about $100 million, mostly to China and India. Financial sanctions imposed over Iran's disputed nuclear program have dealt a heavy blow to its foreign trade. Since late last year the United States has stepped up its use of anti-money laundering legislation to make it legally dangerous for banks that have any U.S. business to maintain ties with Iran. As a result, Iranian firms have been frozen out of much of the global banking system which finances trade. It is difficult or impossible for them to obtain letters of credit or conduct international transfers of funds through banks. But the cases of AHT and other Iranian companies contacted by Reuters suggests many are finding their way around the obstacles and continuing to do business, albeit at considerable inconvenience and cost. Some Iranian exporters and importers are resorting to barter; others are putting together complicated but legal networks of partners abroad to handle payments. Some are using transfers through money exchange houses instead of banks, or employing a legal but largely unregulated money transfer network known as hawala in the Middle East and hundi in India. "Commerce takes precedence over everything, so if tomorrow there are sanctions or whatever else, there are always different ways of getting round it," said Sanjiv Sawla of Mumbai-based trading firm M Lakhamsi. "There was a minor aberration for a while where there was a drop-off in trade, but everybody has put their systems in place now," he said. His firm trades about $125 million a year of seeds, spices, wheat and rice -- some $5-10 million with Iran. "I get my money out of Dubai. I don't know how they arrange it...The product never touches Dubai, the product just goes from India to Iran and the payment comes from Dubai these days...Until about six months ago, it used to come from Iran." EXPORTS Iran's exports in the last fiscal year to March 20 were estimated at $107 billion, of which $81 billion were oil and gas, according to the International Monetary Fund. Imports were estimated at $70 billion. The Iranian government is scrambling to find ways to continue getting paid for its oil; Iran has agreed with India, for example, to settle 45 percent of their oil trade in the rupee, which is not freely exchanged in global markets. The rupees may be used to pay for imports into Iran of Indian iron and steel, chemicals and cereals. Most of Iran's non-oil businesses cannot count on such strong demand for their products, so for them it may be more difficult to work around the sanctions. But there are signs that many are managing. Because of the freeze on bank transfers, the 20-odd Iranian food exporters among the 3,800 stands at this month's Dubai show paid cash or used the hawala network to secure modest stands in an outlying building at the sprawling exhibition centre. Some Iranian exporters and suppliers to Iran said they still used banks in Turkey, which has kept some banking channels to Iran open to handle oil payments. But AHT's Amin said he had largely stopped using Turkish banks because of high fees or taxes, and because he feared the next wave of sanctions could freeze payments to him that were still in the pipeline. Barter is safer, he said. Other Iranian companies have switched from banks to money exchange houses in Dubai or elsewhere for their international payments. The exchange houses have continued to do business legally with Iran, although limits on the size of individual transfers make them less convenient than banks. Iran's Gohar Saffron, which exports around 11,000 kilos a year of the highly prized spice, has started using exchange houses in the last few months to keep its $30-million-a-year business going. Iran is the world's biggest producer of saffron. "We can do it but only with a lot of trouble," Hutan Motamedi, Spain-based marketing manager for Gohar, said at the company's stand. "Every year sales are growing because every year we get into a different country...Some of the sales go directly, but it's easier if it goes via Spain." Other Iranian firms are using the hawala network, traders said. There are thought to be hundreds of millions of dollars transferred in and out of Dubai each year through the network, which is a popular way for the emirate's sizeable south Asian and Iranian communities to send money home. It is barely documented and based largely on trust. Typically, an expatriate worker in Dubai pays an intermediary called a hawaladar in dollars or dirhams; the hawaladar calls a contact, often a trusted relative, in the receiving country, and the contact pays the worker's family in local currency. Hawaladars later settle debts to each other through simple cash-carrying -- for example, using the ferry between Iran and the emirate of Sharjah, which adjoins Dubai -- or by supplying goods. According to World Bank studies of hawala channels operating between Afghanistan, Dubai and Pakistan, there is no clear limit on the volume of funds that they can handle. The World Bank has estimated single transactions of over $500,000 are not uncommon; large international aid institutions have made transfers twice as large because of the lack of banks in rural Afghanistan. SHIPPING Such channels cannot substitute for the international banking system completely. Iran relies on imports for about 45 percent of its rice consumption, U.S. government data show, with India one of the biggest suppliers. But several Indian rice exporters at the Dubai show said they had stopped shipping to Iran by sea in the past few months because of payment and insurance problems. "What's the point of doing business with Iran when you lose 100 percent?" said Sharif Yusuf, director of Mumbai-based Al-Gyas Exports, which deals in rice, corn, sugar and wheat. Malaysian and Singaporean palm oil exporters at the food show said they had stopped sending shipments to Iran since their banks refused to issue letters of credit to any shipment bound for Iranian ports last year. Away from the modern halls of the exhibition centre, in the crowded streets of Al Ras market in old Dubai, many among the long-established expatriate community of Iranian food merchants said they were also cutting trade, partly because they had been burned by the steep slide of the Iranian rial in the past few months. "Right now it is very hard to trade with Iran," an Iranian foodstuffs trader said as a white-haired colleague slept at his desk. "We try not to do it because we have lost out." But there are signs that new trade routes are replacing damaged ones. Several traders at the show said there had been a rise in rice shipments across Iran's border with Pakistan, paid for in cash. Iranian companies are also forming new partnerships and arrangements with foreign firms to facilitate trade. A Europe-based broker specializing in Iranian agricultural exports, who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue, said that since documents could no longer be sent through normal banking channels, papers showing ownership of the goods were sent directly to the buyer, who then remitted funds straight to a bank account chosen by the exporter. "No letter of credit and no banks involved, other than the receiving account," said the broker, who has been dealing in Iranian goods for decades. "We have new logistics and commercial issues to resolve each day," he added. "The goal posts are changing every day and it is likely that solutions proposed today may no longer be applicable by the end of the week." Behrooz Rezazadeh, head of Tehran-based PSDC Group, which advises Iranian companies on export growth and logistics, described another option. "The export companies have partners outside Iran and they export to their partner and their partner gets the letter of credit, receives the money and then delivers the goods. "Business is like snow at the top of a mountain; after melting to become water, it will find its way down to the bottom. This is the nature of business -- to find a solution." (Editing by Andrew Torchia) World Related Quotes and News Company Price Related News Tweet this Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints We welcome comments that advance the story through relevant opinion, anecdotes, links and data. If you see a comment that you believe is irrelevant or inappropriate, you can flag it to our editors by using the report abuse links. Views expressed in the comments do not represent those of Reuters. For more information on our comment policy, see http://blogs.reuters.com/fulldisclosure/2010/09/27/toward-a-more-thoughtful-conversation-on-stories/ Comments (1) rob1990 wrote: Edition: U.S. Africa Arabic Argentina Brazil Canada China France Germany India Italy Japan Latin America Mexico Russia Spain United Kingdom Back to top Reuters.com Business Markets World Politics Technology Opinion Money Pictures Videos Site Index Legal Bankruptcy Law California Legal New York Legal Securities Law Support & Contact Support Corrections Advertise With Us Connect with Reuters Twitter Facebook LinkedIn RSS Podcast Newsletters Mobile About Privacy Policy Terms of Use Copyright Our Flagship financial information platform incorporating Reuters Insider An ultra-low latency infrastructure for electronic trading and data distribution A connected approach to governance, risk and compliance Our next generation legal research platform Our global tax workstation Thomsonreuters.com About Thomson Reuters Investor Relations Careers Contact Us Thomson Reuters is the world's largest international multimedia news agency, providing investing news, world news, business news, technology news, headline news, small business news, news alerts, personal finance, stock market, and mutual funds information available on Reuters.com, video, mobile, and interactive television platforms. Thomson Reuters journalists are subject to an Editorial Handbook which requires fair presentation and disclosure of relevant interests. NYSE and AMEX quotes delayed by at least 20 minutes. Nasdaq delayed by at least 15 minutes. For a complete list of exchanges and delays, please click here.

Other News on Wednesday, 29 February 2012
Top French court strikes down genocide bill |
Egyptian judge resigns from NGO case |
New, faster Apple iPad expected next week |
Dancing With the Stars avoids conflict with new cast |
Jean Dujardin wins best actor Oscar for 'The Artist' |
More than 7,500 killed in Syria, U.N. says |
Iran says making nuclear bombs a great sin |
Clinton says Japan, E.U. working to comply with Iran sanctions |
Iran: two worlds meet, over tea |
NATO urges focus on Afghan stability after Koran burnings |
Guatemala extradites alleged drug kingpin to U.S. |
Wrecked ship's officers plead guilty to NZ grounding |
U.S. sees more of the same from new North Korea leader |
China higher court hears Apple's iPad appeal |
M&A angle seen in Yahoo patent demand on Facebook |
New, faster Apple iPad expected next week |
Wired world to be boon, bane for Generation Y: survey |
HTC shares soar, new phone models get upbeat reviews |
Retrial between Oracle and SAP set for June 2012 |
NZ court rejects bid to rejail Megaupload boss, frees cash |
Twitter expands mobile advertising |
Lindsay Lohan no longer party girl, now a homebody |
Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck welcome son: report |
Streep donates $10,000 in Davis's honor to R.I. school |
Michel Hazanavicius wins directing Oscar for The Artist |
Behind NY's catwalks, legal contracts abound |
U.S. says North Korea agrees to nuclear moratorium |
Afghan forces face threat from within, says official |
Venezuela says ignore rumors in Chavez cancer saga |
Egypt presidential vote starts May 23 |
Egypt detains Islamist, confusion over al Qaeda link |
Smuggling path of death a lifeline for Syria revolt |
Costa passengers endure tropical climes without power |
Barter, other steps help Iran firms beat sanctions |
Facebook revamps pages for businesses |
Europe to investigate Google's new privacy policy |
Chinese relish crack in Great Firewall, log on to Facebook |
HTC says to sell more smartphones in 2012 |
Universal Display slides on Samsung deal concerns |
A Minute With: Kristen Chenoweth on her new show CGB |
ECB boosts loans to 1 trillion Euro to stop credit crunch
Greece at new risk of being pushed off euro
Bodies of missing Tenn. mom, Jo Ann Bain, and daughter found
Female Breasts Are Bigger Than Ever
AMD Trinity Accelerated Processing Units Now in Volume Production
The Avengers (2012 film), made the second biggest opening- and single-day gross of all-time
AMD to Start Production of piledriver
Ivy Bridge Quad-Core, Four-Thread Desktop CPUs
Islamists Protest Lady Gaga's Concert in Indonesia
Japan Successfully Broadcasts an 8K Signal Over the Air
ECB boosts loans to 1 trillion Euro to stop credit crunch
Egypt : Mohammed Morsi won with 52 percent
What do you call 100,000 Frenchmen with their hands up
AMD Launches AMD Embedded R-Series APU Platform
Fed Should not Ignore Emerging Market Crisis
Fed casts shadow over India, emerging markets
Why are Chinese tourists so rude? A few insights

USD EUR - 1 year graph	VPN on MacOSX	BlogMeter 1.01