The Iranian Ambassador to London, Hamid Baeidinejad, made the remark in a tweet on Tuesday, while referring to a report published by a leading Danish daily newspaper, Politiken.
“The major pharmaceutical company ‘Novo Nordisk’, which is one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world with 48,000 staff, has welcomed the creation of INSTEX by the three European countries, and has announced that it has been waiting for the implementation of this mechanism to resume cooperation with Iranian companies,” wrote Baedinejad in his tweet.
According to the report by Politiken, the financial manager of the Danish company said he had been waiting for the implementation of a trade mechanism like INSTEX, voicing his satisfaction over its creation and hoping that the company would be soon able to use the mechanism to continue trade with Iran.
Novo Nordisk as the world's largest producer of insulin, supplies over 50% of the insulin required by countries around the world.
Back in 2015, the company signed a memorandum of understanding with the Food and Drug Organization of Iran (FDO) worth 70 million euros to build a manufacturing plant for new generation of insulin drugs in the next two years. Close to 5 million people in Iran have diabetes.
France, Germany and the United Kingdom on Thursday issued a joint statement on the creation of INSTEX (Instrument for Supporting Trade Exchanges), a Special Purpose Vehicle aimed at facilitating legitimate trade between European economic operators and Iran, in a bid to bypass the US sanctions and convince Iran to remain in the nuclear deal following the US unilateral withdrawal from the agreement.
According to the statement, the mechanism will focus initially on the sectors most essential to the Iranian population – such as pharmaceutical, medical devices and agri-food goods, and will later expand to be open to economic operators from third countries who wish to trade with Iran.
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