Iran is going to become a member of the BRICS Bank, Governor of the Central Bank of Iran Abdolnaser Hemmati said, according to reports from Iranian media on Tuesday evening.

BRICS is an organization made up of eleven countries: Brazil, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates. It is an economic and geopolitical bloc that focuses on trade and development.

The New Development Bank (BRICS Bank) is a “multilateral development bank established by BRICS with the purpose of mobilizing resources for infrastructure and sustainable development projects in emerging markets and developing countries,” its website explains.

Hemmati announced that Iran was set to join the BRICS Bank in the near future, Iran’s semi-official Tasnim News Agency reported.

Iran expects the BRICS Bank to provide economic benefits

“Productive cooperation has commenced between our country and India in the areas of monetary affairs, banking, and the digital economy,” Hemmati said.

The next BRICS Summit will take place in September. The Governor said “The BRICS summit offers a prime opportunity to meet with officials from member nations with whom our country maintains its most extensive monetary and banking exchanges and interactions,” Tasnim reported.

“We believe that BRICS member nations can conduct trade using their national currencies, and we are pursuing bilateral and trilateral monetary cooperation with these members.”

Iran’s economy in crisis after war with US

Iran’s wartime economic crisis has triggered mass layoffs across multiple industries, with Iranian officials estimating that some two million people have lost work “directly or indirectly” due to the conflict and a prolonged nationwide internet blackout, according to a report by The New York Times.

Businesses across Iran have begun laying off workers as the country’s economy struggles under the combined pressure of war-related disruptions, sanctions, infrastructure damage, and the government-imposed internet blackout.

Iranian Deputy Labor Minister Gholamhossein Mohammadi said the conflict had already resulted in the loss of more than one million jobs and left another two million people “directly or indirectly unemployed,” according to statements given to Tasnim.

Asher Smith contributed to this report.

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