Iran, EAEU to Hold Talks on Free Trade Agreement by Yearend

IRAN NEWS ECONOMIC DESK

TEHRAN – Head of Iran Trade Promotion Organization says talks with Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) will be held by the end of 2020.

Hamid Zadboum said that the talks for temporary free trade between Iran and EAEU started in  2016 and in 2018 it was signed by the then Iran Minister of Industry, and after the approval of Majlis in late October 2019 it came into effect.

He added that the agreement was an international one between Iran and EAEU which includes countries like Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan and of course, the number of its members may increase in the future.

Zadboum added that Uzbekistan is working to join this union and some countries like Iran will have cooperation agreement with it.

He noted that some countries like Singapore and Vietnam are not the members of the union but they have free trade agreements with it.

Zadboum went on to say that the temporary free trade agreement with EAEU was carried out for one year in the first stage and then Iran has two more years to continue its free trade talks to finalize the deal.

He reiterated that Iran succeeds in signing the free trade agreement in three years, it can be a trade partner of the union and currently there is no talk of becoming its member yet.

Zadboum reiterated before resuming free trade talks, some legal measures should be taken that the preliminary meeting with the EAEU was virtually held in November in a webinar.

He further emphasized that the talks with the union on the free trade agreement will be held by the yearend and the talks will be in two parts that the first part is about the text of the agreement and the second part will be about the goods which may see discount or zeroing their tariffs.

An online meeting of the Iran-Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) free trade agreement (FTA) taskforce, which was set up following the agreement signed between the two sides in October 2019, was held earlier this month.

The meeting was attended by the chairs of the mentioned taskforce, the Head of Iran’s Trade Promotion Organization (TPO) Zadboum, and the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC) Minister of Trade Andrey Slepnev, the portal of TPO reported.

Iran is a very important market in the region and the development of ties with this country is of high significance for the EAEU members (Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan).

The trade agreement between Iran and this union has laid the ground for the expansion of trade ties between the two sides.

The agreement with the bloc has increased Iran’s exports to the EAEU member states significantly, which is a turning point for the Islamic Republic plans for boosting non-oil exports during the U.S. sanctions.

The figures show that the Iranian trade with the EAEU has increased to two billion dollars, indicating a 2% surge over the past eight months of 2020 compared to the same period in 2019.