Tehran, Ankara Mull Over Ways of Targeting $30b Trade
IRAN NEWS ECONOMIC DESK
TEHRAN – Head of Iranian President’s Office for Communications said that the two countries of Iran and Turkey mulled over ways of targeting to reach $30 billion worth of bilateral trade.
On the sidelines of the meeting held between Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday through video conference, the two countries explored avenues for reaching $30 billion bilateral trade.
In his twitter account on Tuesday, Alireza Moezzi wrote, “The Sixth Meeting of Supreme Council of Strategic Relations between Iran and Turkey was held in Tehran on Tue. through video conference in the presence of Iranian and Turkish presidents and eight ministers of the two countries.”
Ways of targeting $30 billion worth of trade in bilateral trade, which had been agreed in the previous meeting of the two presidents, also was examined, he underlined.
Expansion of cooperation in the fields of energy, transport and tourism were of the issues of mutual concerns agreed between Iranian and Turkish presidents in this meeting, Moezzi added.
Regional issues such as spread of peace and stability in Syria, continuation of Astana Peace Process and operationalization of its agreements were also discussed between the two countries.
According to Moezzi, issue of Palestine and treacherous behavior of some regional countries in normalization of ties with Israel and undermining the Islamic world were the other issues taken into consideration in this meeting.
Chief of Staff of the President of Iran Mahmoud Vaezi said Tehran and Ankara are going to develop their cooperation in a wide range of business sectors, especially banking, as soon as possible.
He said the economic ties between the two countries are of great volume and very good documents have been signed; therefore, it is needed that Tehran and Ankara develop their relations in the banking sector as soon as possible.
He further added that the governors of the central banks of the two countries have highlighted this matter while President Rouhani and President Erdogan have also discussed using national currencies in trade and business.
Vaezi went on to say that expansion of the trade ties was discussed during the Sixth Meeting of the High Level Cooperation Council between Iran and Turkey.
“It is decided that the two countries give priority to purchasing each other’s domestic products. It was also decided that Iran and Turkey talk about bartering goods.”
Chief of Staff of Iran’s President said energy was another issue discussed by the two sides.
Moreover, he said the sides have exchanged views on export of natural gas and petrochemical products.
“A committee will be formed to follow up on these issues. We talked about cooperation in the electricity field as well. About the preferential trade agreement, we decided to show more flexibility to work on 60 kind of goods on both sides,” reiterated Vaezi.
According to him, another issue on the agenda during the meeting was close customs cooperation between Iran and Turkey.
“We talked about using electronic systems to speed up the procedures at customs,” he added.
He noted that joint investment was another issue on the agenda.
“We discussed he formation of a joint committee to support Iranian and Turkish companies and mutual investments. We weighed in on rail and road transportation and transit. On the other hand, we reached good agreements on cooperation at borders as well as increasing the number of trucks,” underlined Vaezi.
