Tehran-Tashkent Direct Flight to Be Launched

IRAN NEWS ECONOMIC DESK

TEHRAN – Uzbekistan’s Minister of Investment and Foreign Trade Sardar Omar Zagov welcomes Iran’s proposal for resumption of  direct flights between capitals of both countries.

According to reports, Iran’s Trade Promotion Organization (TPO)’s Head Hamid Zadboum in a webinar with Zagov reviewed ways for bilateral cooperation between Iran and Uzbekistan in different fields with an eye on using barter system in their trade.

Zadboum said that Iran and Uzbekistan are ready to hold the next meeting of their joint economic committee next week, TPO website published on Saturday after an online meeting between Zadboum and an Uzbek official.

As reported, Zadboum and Uzbekistan’s deputy minister of investment and foreign trade explored the ways for bolstering trade relations between the two countries during the online meeting and agreed to set up a committee to start negotiations on finalizing preferential trade agreement between Iran and Uzbekistan.

They also agreed to hold a meeting with the transport ministers of the two countries on strengthening bilateral transport ties.

Zadboum pointed to the decline in bilateral trade in the first four months of the current year due to the virus pandemic and closure of borders and called for boosting trade ties by removing the hurdles and using different routes for having access to Uzbekistan.

He also invited his Uzbek counterpart to hold an exhibition on Uzbek products in Tehran which was welcomed by Zagov.

During the webinar, it was decided the four-way meeting of road ministers to convene for boosting multilateral cooperation on transportation.

Both sides also called for forming a joint committee for final talks to finalize the preferential trade agreement between both countries.

Meanwhile Zagov, for his part, welcomed his Iranian counterpart’s proposal for resumption of Tehran-Tashkent direct flight by Iranian airlines in order to boost tourism industry as well as developing bilateral trade.

He added that coronavirus condition in Uzbekistan is getting better and the period of quarantine and lockdown in Uzbekistan has been shortened from 14 to 7 days.

At the end of the webinar, both sides decided to pursue the transportation issues with Turkmenistan and India and bilateral cooperation in the free zones.

As announced last month by Iranian Vice President for Economic Affairs Mohammad Nahavandian, the volume of trade between Iran and Uzbekistan increased 40 percent in 2019.

The official made the remarks in a meeting via video conference with Uzbekistan’s Minister of Investment and Foreign Trade Zagov.