US surprised by ‘Iranian evasion technique’

US surprised by ‘Iranian evasion technique’

As sanctions mount against Iran, reports have gave an account of how surprised some US authorities are by Iran’s methods of bypassing the sanctions.
“Despite onerous sanctions that have basically shut Iran out of the global financial system, the country is still finding some ways to bypass them, the Treasury Department said Thursday, describing what it called a small but “emerging threat” to the effectiveness of the sanctions effort,” NY Times said in an article January 10.

“Adam Szubin, director of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, which supervises American enforcement of the sanctions, said the Iranians were using private exchange houses and trading companies in other countries, masking transactions with fake identities and relying on the paperless practice known as hawala, common in parts of the Middle East and Asia, in which money is transferred informally and often illegally through trustworthy couriers,” NY Times continued.

The report says that with only 300,000 barrels deficit in oil export (as opposed to the alleged one million barrel deficit), Iran is bypassing sanctions.

The report goes on to say that in 2011 the growth rate was 1.7 per cent, to slip down to -1 percent in 2012.

World Bank expects Iranian economy to come clean of the slump with a 0.6 per cent growth rate in 2013. A previous report had predicted the growth rate at -0.7

Based on the report it is expected that Iran’s current account balance will remain positive and the country’s GDP growth would be 7.6 per cent.