Sixty-three percent growth in Iran's exports to Eurasian countries
The head of the Trade Development Organization announced a 63% increase in Iran's exports to the Eurasian Economic Community member states.
According to the International Iranian Stone Exhibition, Hamid Zadboom said: "From November 25 last year to the end of June this year, we had exports of three hundred and eighty-three million dollars to Eurasia, which compared to the same period last year, grew by sixty-three percent Meanwhile, our imports from Eurasia, which is mostly basic goods, during this period was one billion and one hundred and twenty million dollars, which has decreased by fifteen percent compared to the same period last year.
He added that the Eurasian Economic Forum includes five countries: Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Belarus and Armenia, which are very important to us with a trade volume of nine hundred billion dollars, especially in the current situation. "Free trade agreement between Iran and Eurasia," he said. It is now temporary and we will implement this agreement with eight hundred and sixty items for one year, but from the second year, November 25 of this year, we will enter into negotiations for free trade.
According to the official, some people think that if our import figure is more than one billion dollars, it means that we have given a discount to the other side; While the agreement is in two forms; That is, we discounted some items and some items were fixed by the Eurasian side; So we discounted about twenty percent of the items to the Eurasian side, and about eighty percent of the items are tariff-fixed; This means that we could import from other countries with the same tariff.
"The interim free trade agreement shows that our continued work on free trade is very positive and there is good space and capacity for that, but increasing our exports to Eurasia is also fraught with problems," Zadboom said. For example, our logistics infrastructure, roads, border gates, transportation and shipping to Russia and Kazakhstan need to be developed, and if we can not strengthen our logistics infrastructure while increasing trade with Eurasia, this reduction in tariffs will not be of much use.
The head of the Trade Development Organization added: "The second issue between the two sides, Iran and Eurasia, is financing, which means that both Iranian and Eurasian exporters should be able to use certain credit lines to develop trade."
Zadboom continued: "The third issue is the harmonization and compliance of our and Eurasia standards in the industrial sector and the plant quarantine sector, plant protection and veterinary medicine, which is being pursued by forming a working group."
He added: "Last July, a joint working group was held with the Minister of Eurasia Trade and we analyzed the events, achievements and problems of the Interim Free Trade Agreement since November 26, last year." We decided to study these problems before November of this year to prepare for a free trade agreement, which according to the protocol between Iran and the Eurasian Economic Community can last up to two years.
Zadboom stated that the current volume of trade between Iran and the Eurasian Economic Community is about two and a half billion dollars and said: "Our forecast is that if we implement free trade with Eurasian countries, our trade volume with Eurasia could quadruple to the current ten billion dollars." It will increase in the next four to five years, of course, a major part of which could be our exports, while our imports are mostly basic goods.
He added: "Targeting to increase trade with Eurasia means increasing trade with neighboring countries, because three of the five Eurasian countries are neighbors with Iran."
The head of the Trade Development Organization continued by stating that in the conditions of sanctions, our focus is to increase the share of trade with neighboring countries: in 1397, our exports to neighboring countries accounted for fifty-four percent of total exports, and last year it was about sixty percent. We now aim to reach the rate of seventy-one percent, which if this trend continues, given the proximity of the people of these countries to each other and the existence of land and water borders, this issue can thwart many sanctions plans.
Zadboom said: "The most items in which we had growth in exports to Eurasia were agricultural products. For example, in the last eight months, we exported about eighty-three million dollars worth of apples to Eurasia, while pistachios, kiwis, raisins, peppers, cucumbers, dates." Lettuce, cauliflower and carpets were major exports to Eurasia.
The official explained: "This is in the context that from March 6 last year to the end of May this year, more than twenty of our land borders were closed due to the corona, and this amount of exports occurred only through sea borders to Eurasia; Meanwhile, the food industry, especially the canning and halal industries, had the highest growth in exports to Eurasia.
