TEHRAN- Iran’s Trade Promotion Organization (TPO) held the first meeting of its Commodity-Country Desk on trade with Iraq presided by Farzad Piltan, the director-general of TPO’s Office of Arabian and African Countries.

As reported by the website of TPO on Wednesday, the meeting was mainly focused on investigating the ways for increasing exports to Iraq’s Kurdistan region and removing the barriers related to transporting these materials to the country.

In addition to introducing the potentials of Iraqi Kurdistan’s market; problems and solutions for the development of exports to the mentioned region were presented at the meeting which was attended by Iran’s Consul General in Sulaimaniyah, according to Piltan.

Iran's participation in Iraq’s International Trade Fair which is due to held in a month was another issue raised in the meeting, while TPO’s plans for the development of trade relations with Iraq as well as the Kurdistan region were outlined.

Despite the re-imposition of U.S. sanctions against the Islamic Republic, Iraq has been getting closer to Iran both politically and economically. 

There is also the same approach adopted by Iran, as many Iranian companies now eager to conduct trade with Iraq,  especially with the Kurdistan region where there is a great demand for Iranian products,

Iraq is currently Iran’s biggest trade partner and the two countries have been taking significant steps to improve their mutual trade over the past few years.

In early February, central banks of Iran and Iraq reached an agreement to set up a payment mechanism to facilitate banking ties and boost trade between the two countries.

Iran’s exports to Iraq have increased by 37 in the last Iranian calendar year (ended on March 20) and the two neighbors have it on agenda to boost their mutual trade to $20 billion by 2021.

EF/