The Centre is ready to deal with any possible fallout of the United States’ sanctions on Iran, Ministry of Finance’s Principal Economic Adviser Sanjeev Sanyal said, IANS reported on Sunday.

“We have already weighed our options...various scenarios have been thought about and in each one, certain series of sequences have been planned,” Sanyal was quoted as saying. “Provisions have somewhat been made where necessary. In many cases, you just have to do it when it happens. The key is to react fast.”

Last month, US President Donald Trump reimposed economic sanctions on Iran but said he was open to negotiating a comprehensive nuclear deal that “addresses the full range of the regime’s malign activities, including its ballistic missile program and its support for terrorism”.

However, the Iran sanctions are not the only external factor that concern Sanyal. “There is a trade war looming,” he said. “We have oil prices which we need to look out for. And the US is tightening its monetary policy. These are not new concerns; they have been building up for some weeks now, if not months. But these are concerns that will have an impact on us.”

Sanyal said India should wait for what happens and how systems evolve “and to respond quickly to protect national interests” since the impact of external factors is not quantifiable. “The point is that since we do not know how the trade war and many of these things will pan out, or oil prices for that matter, so we will have to wait.”

The economist said it was important to maintain the momentum of economic growth. The government’s focus was to clean up the banking system, ensure credit flow to micro, small and medium enterprises, and simplify the Goods and Services Tax, he added.