Iran poses threat to dominance of the US dollar

This week in the world of economics began with the opening of the international oil exchange in Iran. The intrigue of the situation is accentuated by the fact that trading will take place in the European currency. This in itself is setting a precedent: in modern history oil has been quoted exclusively in dollars.

	Iran produces 4% of the world's oil
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Alarmists and antiglobalists from all countries have rushed to describe this as yet another sentence against the hegemony of the dollar/">dollar and the USA. It can not be ruled out that this idea is what is motivating the Iranian authorities. At the height of tension in relations between the USA and Iran the latter’s move looks like a blow to the economic power of its enemy.

This cannot be deemed a weak blow – Iran has a share of at least 4% of worldwide oil production. Moreover, it has been declared that the format of the exchange will meet international norms: the question now is: which other of the Persian Gulf states will support Iran?

“The situation there will depend on the extent to which other countries and regions will want to convert from the dollar to the euro/">euro,” the analyst of IK ‘FINAM” Olga Belenkaya told Pravda.Ru. “It is not a fact that Saudi Arabia will want to convert to the euro. If this is just something inside Iran, which will be selling oil in euros, then it is not very dangerous, because all the same its share in oil production is not that great.”

Analysts are for the moment being cautious in their predictions – everyone is advising to wait and see how this week at least will turn out. The dollar has slipped somewhat in world markets, but experts tend to think that this small fall was caused by the events of last week.

In order to contemplate the consequences of the opening of the euro oil market in Iran, it is necessary to look at its origins. However surprising this may be, the man behind the idea is the British financier Chris Cook, former director of the International Petroleum Exchange in London. In 2001 he wrote a letter to the head of the Iranian Central Bank Mohsen Nourbakhsh.

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