China's ambassador to Iran said the channel for facilitating new finance from the world's second largest economy is open for Tehran, assuring the Iranian business community that recent banking hurdles and the alleged closure of Iranian account are only temporary.
"Chinese banks are commercial lenders and therefore the government cannot order them to do anything, but as we saw recently, two Chinese banks signed agreements with Iran to finance a number of projects," Pang Sen was also quoted as saying during his meeting with senior trade officials in Tehran Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture on Saturday.
Pang also referred to the closure of a number of Iranian accounts in Chinese banks, saying negotiations are underway between officials of both countries "and the difficulties will be resolved with a bit of patience".
Considering the FATF recommendations and the fact that Iran still remains on the list of high-risk countries, it is only natural that Chinese lenders would close the accounts of people without official business accounts and of those who transfer massive amounts of money without paying taxes.
Separately, Iran's ambassador to the Asian nation confirmed that the account closures have nothing to do with recent US sanctions against a limited number of Iranian individuals and entities and are in line with standards of combating money laundering advocated by the Financial Action Task Force