In a live TV debate, President Rouhani said one more effect of the JCPOA had been the country’s access to the revenue of crude and gas condensate sales.
Outlining the most important political, economic, cultural, regional and international issues, President Rouhani said August 2 recalls him a very memorial day, which is the day he received the endorsement of the public votes, offered by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei.
Emphasizing that this year will be the year many problems will be tackled, he said last year was a tough economic year for harsh plunge in oil prices and government is bent on to ensure this year will be the year of breakthroughs.
“Passing more days in light of the endeavors and help of the public and through efforts and constant endeavors of government and nation and in light of solidarity with each other and coordination with other branches of power, effective steps we will take for prosperity of the nation and public welfare. Economic indices last months reveal movement towards five percent economic growth rate.”
Noting that Iran is the focal point of security and stability in the region, President Rouhani said in the course of the three years, thanks to efforts of the armed forces and public endeavors, “we witnessed unprecedented tranquility and stability and such a stability and calm will continued and Iran will always remain the hub of security and stability of the region.”
The president elaborated on production and exports of crude and gas condensates both before and after the JCPOA and said before the JCPOA, let’s say the first 10 months of the year 1394 (March 21, 2015-March 19, 2016), crude and gas condensates production stood at 4,154,000 barrels and that of exports at 2,428,000 barrels.
He said just in few months, the production rose to 4,154,000 barrels from 3,250,000 barrels thanks to the JCPOA.
“The JCPOA left our hands free in selling crude and gas condensates.”
“This is an honor for us to sell oil as much as we like; this is important for us economically, politically and revolutionarily. Independence sets as major portion of the revolution and major portion of independence is our will to stand the big powers and not to let them impose on us.”
“While we are free to sell oil and gas condensates, we are free to access the petrodollars and money for the gas condensates; During years of sanctions, the countries purchasing oil from us set conditions for us because we had to sell oil to few oil countries; for instance, they said this much should be sold in dollar and this much in our own national currency; then we had to buy commodities for that portion of revenue in their own national currency because we could not handle their national currency and at the same time converting the currency was costly because there had been in fact no money to have value of exchange all over the world.”
“Today, we are free to use our own currency.”
He went on to say, “Now – as Minister of Petroleum Bijan Zanganeh has said – we sell crude in euro and the revenue is deposited in the account determined by we ourselves. This was not so in the past because there was no account to which to deposit the money. Today there are more than 400 foreign banks having ties with us and their number is growing day by day. We can transfer our petrodollar to our own (bank) branches overseas; at time of sanctions the branches were not active. Now can use them. During the JCPOA a good opportunity has been provided. The opportunity is not only for sale of crude and access to our property but also in the case of insurance and shipping. Our shipping was subject to sanctions. Big ships did not berth in our ports; they heading for ports of other countries. Hence we had to carry goods with our own vessels and this was an extra cost for us.”