Phillipine Ambassador to Tehran Wilfredo C. Santos yesterday met Deputy Head of Iran Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture (ICCIMA) Mohammadreza Karbasi and during the meeting both sides explored ways for expanding cooperation.

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During the meeting, Mr. Santos expressed his country’s interest for expanding trade cooperation with Iran in agro, technical and engineering, minerals and tourism sectors.

He went on to say that the trade volume between both countries soared significantly after the nuclear deal and it reached $900m, and oil accounted for major part of their trade volume but after reimposition of the sanctions, the trade fell sharply. The diplomat said he hopes the trade relation with Iran would improve soon.

He pointed to some products of the Philippines like pineapple and banana which are in demand in Iran, noting that his country needs import of Iran’s steel, cement and bitumen, adding that these bilateral needs can pave the ground for bartering.

Santos noted that his country is after infrastructures like expansion of ports, dam construction, road construction, airport construction and he is well aware that Iran is capable in those fields and the Philippines is ready to cooperate.

He urged Iran’s chamber of commerce to present a list of goods which can be offered in the trade system for more talks.

Meanwhile Karbasi, for his part, pointed to the good political relations between Tehran and Manila, adding that attention to the bilateral economic relation is necessary.

He went on to say that the Philippines as an influential ASEAN member states with a market with 500m population and Iran as an ECO member with the market with over 450m population have huge capacities for economic cooperation.

Karbasi added that the trade volume between both countries has decreased to $200m while good political will and private sector’s will as well as current capacities show otherwise and it is expected the figure to rise.

He stated that banking problem  is the major hurdle in way if bilateral trade,  adding that this hurdle may provide other mechanisms like barter because both states can balance their imports and exports well.

Karbasi also reiterated that exchange of trade delegation is one way for boosting trade, adding that in the past years several delegations from the Philippines have visited Tehran and their presence can strengthen bilateral trade.

He also said launching direct flight between Iran and the Philippines is another major demand of business activists for boosting trade, reiterating that signing preferential trade agreement is necessary.