Farzin made the remarks while addressing the 51st Meeting of the ACU Board of Directors in Tehran on Wednesday.

He asked the member states to diversify their currency basket by using local currencies and other not commonly used currencies which he said would encourage de-dollarization in trade exchanges, further protect their forex reserves and create an effective settlement mechanism.

The CBI governor stated that the ACU was established in 1974 with the aim of de-dollarization and using local currencies and fostering barter trade among the nine member countries.

“Although the Union’s volume of exchanges has not been significant in the past years, the monetary and financial developments of recent years and the growth of trade in the East and the strengthening of the currencies of these countries have provided new opportunities for the Union,” he added.

Farzin, who became ACU’s rotating chair, stressed that the bloc will seek to admit new members and will diversify the basket of currencies it accepts for payment settlements to help the de-dollarization campaign.

The move is in line with statements by ACU members in recent months suggesting they are eager to join regional and international efforts to reduce the weight of the US dollar in global trade, a process which has become known as de-dollarization.

Meanwhile, deputy governor of the CBI Mohsen Karimi said that ACU members agreed in a summit in the Iranian capital Tehran on Wednesday to launch their own banking messaging system within a month, 

“The (ACU) countries decided to have a customized system for themselves considering that SWIFT is not available to all countries and given that it has its own costs,” he stated.

The CBI’s deputy for international affairs added that the messaging system will cover all demands for clearing monetary transactions among nine members of the ACU.

Iran-Russia De-Dollarization Push Gaining Momentumhttps://t.co/lgJoUPYc9I pic.twitter.com/7dsz2MXogC

— Fars News Agency (@EnglishFars) May 24, 2023

Iranian officials have repeatedly accused the United States of using the dollar as an instrument to wage economic and political war. They have touched on the policy to use other currencies in place of the dollar, and stressed that the dollar should be gradually ditched from global transactions.

The dollar’s share in global reserves fell ten times faster last year than over the past two decades, according to reports. The process has accelerated after other countries saw Russia’s US dollar and Euro-denominated assets frozen abroad and Moscow cut from the SWIFT global financial messaging system.

US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen has recently admitted that the role of the dollar as the world reserve currency could diminish due to Washington using its leverage over the global financial system to pursue its geopolitical goals through sanctions.