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11 December 2012 15:19 | Tehran Times
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TEHRAN - Sri Lankan Industry and Commerce Minister Rishad
Bathiyutheen has expressed willingness to start barter trade with Iran.
On Tuesday, the Sri Lankan
official met with Iranian Industry, Mine, and Trade Minister Mehdi Ghazanfari
in Tehran, discussing ways to diversify and expand industrial and trade ties,
IRNA reported.
Ghazanfari said that the value of
bilateral trade stands at $1.6 billion annually (including oil trade).
Bathiyutheen, for his part,
welcomed Iranian investment in his country, and proposed bartering as a means
to give a boost to the two-way trade.
U.S. sanctions against Iran had
compelled Sri Lanka to pay an additional sum of $1.2 billion for the import
of crude oil and refined oil, Sri Lankan Petroleum Minister Susil Premjayanth
said in October.
The Minister said that the
country’s oil bill had reached $5 billion by now.
The government had made
arrangements to purchase crude from Saudi Arabia and other oil producing
nations and orders had been placed for 135,000 million tons of light crude
and another 80,000 million tons in the open market.
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Wednesday, December 12, 2012
Sri Lanka proposes barter trade with Iran
