Japan major banks resume cooperation with Iran: report

Three major Japanese banks have started doing business with Iran after the removal of the western sanctions against the Islamic republic in 2015, an Iranian economist was quoted as saying by semi-official Fars news agency on Friday.

"Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ (BTMU), Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation and Mizuho Bank have already started transactions with the Iranian banks," senior associate to the head of the Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI) Farhad Taqizadeh Hesari said.

Other signs also showed that Iran's banking relations with Japan have returned to normalcy, Taqizadeh Hesari said.

"Those signs include launching a credit line worth 10 billion U.S. dollars between Iran and Japan, a whopping increase of 130 percent in Japan's imports of oil products from Iran, and the signing of an agreement to support mutual investments and bilateral trade," he elaborated.

Taqizadeh Hesari also said that the risk for financial transactions between Iran and Japan has decreased after the two countries were able to establish banking transactions based on Japan's national currency, the yen.

BTMU, Japan's largest bank that handled most of Japan's payments for Iranian oil prior to the sanctions in mid-2012, announced in early 2016 that it had resumed transactions with Iranian banks, including payments for Iranian crude oil bought by Japanese refiners.

Banking cooperation sanctions with Iran were lifted as a result of the implementation of a nuclear deal between Iran and the five permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany in January 2015. Endit