{"id":143080,"date":"2024-07-18T15:33:35","date_gmt":"2024-07-18T22:33:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=143080"},"modified":"2024-07-18T15:33:35","modified_gmt":"2024-07-18T22:33:35","slug":"tea-for-oil-deal-sri-lanka-pays-55-million-of-251-million-debt-to-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2024\/07\/18\/tea-for-oil-deal-sri-lanka-pays-55-million-of-251-million-debt-to-iran\/","title":{"rendered":"Tea-for-Oil Deal: Sri Lanka Pays $55 Million of $251 Million Debt to Iran"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>Courtesy IranWire<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n<p>Sri Lanka has made progress in paying its oil debt to Iran through a tea-for-oil agreement, Sri Lanka&#8217;s Tea Board Chairman Niraj De Mel said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>De Mel reported that the country has paid $55 million out of its $250.9 million debt for oil purchases from Iran through tea exports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The debt payment process began in August last year, following an agreement between the two countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the first four months of this year, Sri Lanka has exported 4.1 million kilograms of tea to Iran, tripling the amount exported during the same period in 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The arrangement, agreed upon in December 2021, allows Iran to accept Sri Lanka&#8217;s tea as payment for the outstanding oil debt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The agreement has roots in oil purchases made by Sri Lanka from Iran nine years ago, which had remained unpaid due to international sanctions against Iran.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Alireza Peyman Pak, head of the Iran Trade Development Organization, previously confirmed the signing of a contract for monthly tea exports from Sri Lanka to Iran to settle the $251 million debt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Courtesy IranWire Sri Lanka has made progress in paying its oil debt to Iran through a tea-for-oil agreement, Sri Lanka&#8217;s Tea Board Chairman Niraj De Mel said. De Mel reported that the country has paid $55 million out of its $250.9 million debt for oil purchases from Iran through tea exports. The debt payment process [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-143080","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143080"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143080\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}