Farzin made the remarks in a meeting with the Director of the Middle East and Central Asia Department at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Jihad Azour in Washington, DC, on Thursday.

The CBI chief called on the IMF official to support promotion of Iran trade relations with other countries.

In a report released last month, the IMF announced a whopping $141 billion increase in Iran’s gross domestic product (GDP) in 2022 and ranked the country as the world’s 22nd largest economy of the year.

According to the report, Iran’s GDP reached $1,596 billion based on Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) index in 2022, marking a $141 billion hike compared to the previous year.

On the sidelines of his meetings with the senior officials of the IMF, Farzin stated that Iran has quick access to $6.7 billion worth of its available financial resources kept in the IMF.

Currently, Iran has 4.8 billion worth of Special Drawing Rights (SDRs), which is equivalent to $6.7 billion, he said, adding that withdrawing the fund can help improve the economic situation of the country to a great extent.

In different times when the global economy faces recession, the International Monetary Fund creates liquidity entitled “SDR Allocation, Special Drawing Rights" in order to help its members to get rid of economic recession, Farzin highlighted.

Until before 2021, Iran enjoyed 1.4 billion SDRs and 3.4 billion more SDRs were added to the previous account in order to confront the economic recession caused by the global coronavirus pandemic, the CBI governor noted.

Iran currently has 4.8 billion SDRs at the IMF, which is equivalent to $6.7 billion, Farzin concluded. 

Iran has tens of billions of dollar worth of funds in foreign banks that it cannot access due to US sanctions.

The funds are mostly kept in banks in South Korea, Iraq, China, Japan and India where Tehran is owed for shipments of crude oil and other energy products that took place before Washington imposed its sanctions on Tehran in 2018.

The US, under former President Donald Trump, reinstated crippling sanctions on Iran after unilaterally walking away from the 2015 nuclear deal in May 2018, despite Tehran’s full compliance with the terms of the agreement.

Although Trump failed to achieve his professed goals with the so-called “maximum pressure” campaign, the waves of sanctions have taken a heavy toll on ordinary Iranians.

The sanctions, maintained by Trump’s successor Joe Biden, have restricted the financial channels necessary for Iran to pay for imports of basic goods and medicine.

Iran's President Seyed Ebrahim Rayeesi has reiterated that his country is achieving success as, according to the US officials’, their maximum pressure policy on Tehran has been defeated. He has noted that Iran is no longer worried about its oil sales despite heavy sanctions imposed by the US.