According to the International Iranian Stone Exhibition, Majid Reza Hariri said about using the capacities of trade agreements: to establish bilateral and multilateral relations with other countries, especially for a series of regional cooperation, such as participating in projects such as the "One Belt, One Road" initiative in China. , There is a need for less international pressure so that the cooperating countries do not have considerations towards others and are acceptable in multilateral cooperation.

Hariri added: "Unfortunately, now, due to long-term sanctions by the United States and the European Union, third countries are working hard with us because this cooperation could jeopardize their interests in the US market or in other markets dominated by the US." This is the biggest obstacle that has prevented us from entering into any regional or international trade agreements. It seems that we need to reorganize our relationship with the world in order to enter a multilateral current in the world as a low-margin country.

He added: "We have a lot of problems for political reasons. When we can not work with any of the world's banks, we can not easily use the benefits of any project to finance, participate and attract foreign investment."

The head of the Iran-China Joint Chamber of Commerce said about Iran's non-accession to the World Trade Organization: "When this pact was" GATT "and before the establishment of the WTO, it was very easy to accept this pact and there were no special conditions. We did not use or become a member. From 2003 or 2004, when we became members, we faced the dilemma that admission to the World Trade Organization required consensus, meaning that all members must accept the new member. Therefore, due to political reasons and the problems we have, especially with the United States, we were prevented from joining this organization.

He added: "Of course, in the country, major sections of economic actors, both at the policy level and at the private sector level, oppose joining the WTO." Because if we are a member of the WTO, we can no longer ban the import of any goods and impose high tariffs on goods, while now 4,000 items are banned from entering the country. Many manufacturers are also against it, because if we become a member of the WTO, we must reconsider our production system and be able to produce goods that can compete in the domestic market without tariff protections and without a ban on foreign goods.

Hariri added: "Currently, domestic goods are not able to compete with foreign goods." Part of it is due to the high commercial, monetary and financial costs in the country, which always put pressure on the producer, but the other part is related to the fact that the producer is accustomed to growing up with support and always demands this support. All of this should be taken into account and the producer should be given the right to the existing obstacles, including the inefficient banking system, but a large part of it is related to non-professional producers who produce on a small scale, which causes high costs. Another reason for this is the lack of high productivity in the manufacturing sector.

"Every day we lose to join the WTO is a historic loss for the economy," he said. To join this organization, conditions must be met, but there are no conditions for leaving it, and any country that wants to withdraw from this treaty can withdraw from it by preparing a letter. During these three decades, no country has voluntarily withdrawn from this treaty. Economies much weaker than us have entered into this treaty and it has benefited them so much that they have not left it. Therefore, every country that has entered into this agreement has benefited. If one day they accept us and we put aside this fear, we can benefit. Every day that we lose in this case, we cause damage to the national economy of the country.

The head of the Iran-China Joint Chamber of Commerce said about Iran's role in the recent transit developments: "Currently, we are not present in the new transit equations of the world." Iran is at the crossroads of the world, there are two famous corridors in the world, one north-south corridor and one east-west corridor, both of which pass through our country and we have not paid attention to this point in the last century. If Iran has historically been a place of trade due to its geographical location, as it is stated in our country's literature that all the ancient nations of the world passed through Iran, the same Silk Road passed through Iran a few thousand years ago.

He added: "Naturally, Iran is a transit point for goods, but since the early 1940s, when we started investing in our modern economy, we were mainly looking for steel and similar factories." How many hundreds of billions of dollars have we spent on the steel industry today? What have we achieved other than harming our environment and water resources? In return for this amount of investment, how much employment has been created in the steel sector?

Hariri pointed out: "If we had made all these investments on the port, rail and airport during these sixty years, now millions of transit jobs would have been created because they would create more jobs than production." At the same time, the country was not under so much pressure, either internally such as the environment and water resources, or externally, we could not be easily sanctioned because our country was a gateway for foreign goods. This was a historic mistake, although we have many international open sea borders, which is almost an exception in the West Asian region, and we are the only country in the region that has this amount of open water coast, we could not take advantage of this opportunity.

He added: "If one is asked to name the ten largest cities in the world, eight of the cities he mentions are the major port cities that are on the high seas, such as New York, Barcelona, ​​Shanghai, Liverpool and. ... But in our country, from Khorramshahr to Chabahar, which are next to the open waters, they are among the deprived cities, that is, not only are they not the most prosperous places, but they are the most deprived cities in the country. This is a historical loss and has nothing to do with today. But for at least two to three decades, this issue has been the mental concern of the country's policymakers, and the leadership has repeatedly spoken about the Makran coast and the need to rebuild it, but nothing special has happened.

* ILNA