TEHRAN – The head of Iran’s Trade Promotion Organization (TPO) has called the conclusion of the free trade agreement (FTA) with Eurasia an opportunity to increase the competitiveness of the country’s production and industrial units and an incentive to expand export markets.

Stressing the importance of increasing the export of knowledge-based goods and commodities with higher added value and also the necessity of diversifying export goods and markets, Mehdi Zeyghami said: “Entering the Eurasian market is a prelude to the presence in larger and more complex markets and joining the WTO.”

As the TPO portal reported, the official also emphasized the importance of establishing export consortia, export management companies (EMC) and commercial centers for boosting foreign trade, and underlined the need for using the capacity of such entities for trade with distant countries and larger markets.

Iran and the EAEU member states, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Armenia, signed a free trade agreement in a ceremony in St. Petersburg on December 25, 2023.

Iranian Minister of Industry, Mining and Trade Abbas Aliabadi signed this agreement, which is the result of more than two years of negotiations and expert work, on behalf of Iran.

On behalf of the EAEU, the deputy prime ministers of the member countries signed the agreement.

The signing ceremony was attended by Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for Economic Diplomacy Mehdi Safari, EAEU Minister in Charge of Trade Andrey Slepnev, Iran’s Ambassador to Russia Kazem Jalali, and a number of EAEU officials.

After signing, this agreement needs to be approved by the parliaments of six countries (Iran and EAEU five member states) in order to become a law and become operational.

According to the information received by the IRNA reporter in St. Petersburg from the free trade agreement between Iran and the EAEU, the parties will completely eliminate tariffs for 87 percent of goods in their trade exchanges.

In the meantime, each of the parties prepares a negative list that includes goods that are considered sensitive goods for one of the parties and it is not possible to remove the tariff.

Last week, EAEU Minister in Charge of Trade Andrey Slepnev said that Iran will become one of the most important trade partners of the Eurasian Economic Union with the signing of an FTA between the two sides.

He made the remarks in a meeting with Iranian Ambassador to Moscow Kazem Jalali.

He also called the agreement the most important cooperation document between the two sides.

Jalali, for his part, said the free trade agreement is the result of intensive negotiations and the will of the two sides to develop their relations.

In 2018, Iran and the EAEU inked a preferential trade agreement (PTA), which came into effect on October 27, 2019.

The two sides later began negotiations to upgrade the PTA to an FTA after the success of the former.

Back in August, Slepnev said that the EAEU is ready to boost its annual trade with Iran to $30 billion.

The official said the preferential trade agreement between Iran and the EAEU resulted in the trade between the two sides doubling and it is expected that by signing the free trade agreement the trade between the two sides will be doubled once again.

“The signing of the comprehensive agreement between Iran and the Eurasian Union will provide suitable conditions for mutual access to the markets for both sides,” Slepnev said.

“We know very well that the volume of trade with a large country like Iran is still not very high, and therefore, it seems that targeting 30 billion dollars of annual trade is a good way to develop trade between our countries,” he noted,

The Eurasian Economic Union was established in 2015 at the initiative taken by Russian Federation, Kazakhstan, and Belarus. Afterward, the Republic of Armenia and Kyrgyzstan joined the Union.

The head of the Iran Chamber of Cooperatives (ICC) Agriculture Committee has said the signing of the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the Eurasian Economic Union has facilitated Iran’s access to the $70-billion agricultural and food products market of the EAEU nations.

“The Eurasian countries are directly or indirectly neighbors of our country, and we share land border with Armenia, and have sea borders with the countries of Kazakhstan and Russia, and have access to Kyrgyzstan and Belarus. These countries are a very wide market for our country,” Arsalan Ghasemi told IRNA two weeks ago.

EF/MA