TEHRAN (Iran News) –A senior member of Iran Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines, and Agriculture (ICCIMA) has called for the formation of a joint transportation consortium with Kazakhstan.

Speaking during a meeting with a Kazakh visiting delegation, Behnam Faramarzian, the director of international transportation and TIR carnet department of Iran Chamber of Commerce, said that the Iranian private sector is ready to launch a regular Ro-Ro shipping line between Khazakhstan’s ports of Aktao and Kuryk and the Iranian northern ports.

Kazakhstan’s Deputy Minister of Trade and Integration Kulbatyrov Nurlan, who led that Kazakh delegation to Tehran, said that one of the top priorities of his government is to make use of the transit capacities of Iran.

Noting that Iran and Kazakhstan have targeted a $3 billion annual trade, he said that the Iran’s exports to Kazakhstan are insignificant while the capacities are very high.

He said that one of the main agendas of the visit to Tehran by Kazakhstan’s delegation is to review potentials for trade with Iran and find ways for the problems on the way of exchanges.

Speaking in the meantime, Alireza Yavari, the deputy for international affairs of Iran Chamber of Commerce, said that Kazakhstan is a top priority of Iran for enhancement of trade cooperation.

He said that Iran plans to provide Kazakhstan with facilities in its southern ports so that the country would be able to export its commodities to Far East.

Then Faramarzian, for his part, said that although Iran and Kazakhstan are old members of TIR Carnet Convention, the volume of TIR Carnet between the two countries is low in so far this year out of 3,700 items of road transportation operations, only 119 have been under TIR Carnet process.

He reiterated that unconventional process and ways of trade will take time and it will have no economic justification for the economic enterprises of the two states.

Addressing Nurlan, Faramarzian said that Iran’s southern ports have required infrastructures and they have required facilities for export to or import from Kazakhstan, adding that Kazakhstan has also concentrated on the target markets like Iraq, the UAE, Pakistan, India, Turkey and Turkmenistan and Iran can be a good route for combined transportation and it has a large number of advantages for both sides.