India begins use of Chabahar port in Iran despite international pressure According to the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry in Delhi the Islamic republic offered massive potential for export of Indian products and commodities annually worth over $10 billion. "The potential of trade and economic relations between India and Iran can touch $30 billion by 2015 from the current level of $13.7 billion" Association secretary general D S Rawat said. Importing around 12 per cent of its oil and gas requirements from Iran for an estimated $12 billion, India maintains it will abide only by UN sanctions in this regard and not implement those imposed by individual nations or groupings. Over the past few weeks it has also been examining ways to step up trade with Iran amid trouble in settling its oil bills as sanctions were closing down banking routes. An Iranian Central Bank delegation is presently in Delhi to determine options for India to pay for crude imports and is negotiating to offset a proportion of this against acquiring oil refining machinery, heaving engineering goods and pharmaceuticals all of which the Islamic Republic badly needed. Till recently Indian companies were routing route payments through Turkey's Turkiye Halk Bankasi AS after EU pressure forced German-based Europaisch-Iranische Handelsbank AG to stop handling the payments last year, but it remains uncertain how long this arrangement would continue. Last month India's finance minister Pranab Mukherjee rejected pressure from the Obama administration to join the US-EU led sanctions against Tehran. Speaking to reporters in Chicago he declared that it was "not possible" for India, the world's fourth largest hydrocarbons consumer to reduce its oil and gas imports from Iran as it desperately needed them to sustain economic growth.