TEHRAN (Iran News) – The next meeting of the ambassadors of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) member states will be held in Aras Free Zone (AFZ) in the northwestern Iranian province of East Azarbaijan.

This was announced by Managing Director of Aras Free Zone Organization Mohsen Nariman in a meeting with Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister for Economic Affairs Gholamreza Ansari on Monday, IRNA reported.

Nariman said the meeting is aimed at expanding Iran’s interactions as well as economic and trade relations with the countries of the Eurasia and Caucasus regions.

In an address to the same meeting, Ansari said AFZ is Iran’s only gateway to the markets of the members of the EAEU and Commonwealth of Independent States.

He stressed that it is necessary to increase non-oil export-oriented interactions and trade transactions with these countries using AFZ’s capabilities, capacities and potential.

AFZ plays a major role in and has a good geographical position for trade with the EAEU states, Ansari said.

Noting that Armenia is the only EAEU member having common land border with Iran, the deputy minister called for using this opportunity to introduce the route passing through Armenia as the road for transit of Iranian products to the union’s member states.

According to figures by Iran’s Trade Promotion Organization (TPO), during October 2019-June 2020, trade between Iran and the EAEU members witnessed an increase of 14 percent, compared to what it was in the same period of the preceding year.

The increase was achieved despite the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic and the drop in global trade.

The first meeting of Iran-EAEU trade taskforce, which was set up to expand trade between the two sides after they inked a preferential trade agreement in October 2019, was held online on July 8.

The meeting was attended by Hamid Zadboum, the TPO’s head, and Iranian Ambassador to Russia Kazem Jalali, as well as other officials from Iran and the EAEU member states.

Speaking at the meeting, Zadboum said, “We are trying to remove the obstacles to boosting bilateral trade through cooperation.”

Having an annual trade of over $800 billion, the EAEU member states play a significant role in the global trade, he noted, adding Iran attaches great importance to the expansion of trade with these countries.

Zadboum said annual trade between Iran and the EAEU member countries currently stands at over $2 billion, which can be increased to $5 billion in the short term and $10 billion in the long run.