TEHRAN – Iran’s capital Tehran is hosting the eighth meeting of the investment working group of the member countries of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), an official with the Organization for Investment Economic and Technical Assistance of Iran announced.

According to Mostafa Pak-Baten, all nine SCO member countries namely Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and the Islamic Republic of Iran will participate in this working group, IRNA reported.

In this meeting, investment programs among the member countries of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization will be discussed and finalized based on the SCO economic development strategy until 2030, the official said.

The regulations of the Investment Working Group of the member countries of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization will also be finalized in this meeting, he added.

The inauguration ceremony of the SCO investment working group three-day meeting was held in Tehran on Tuesday.

The seventh meeting of the mentioned working group was held in Tajikistan in 2017.

As recently announced by the spokesman of the International Relations and Trade Development Committee of Iran's House of Industry, Mining, and Trade, Iran’s 10-month trade with the members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization has increased by 41 percent in terms of weight and 5.5 percent in value compared to figures reported in last year’s corresponding period.

According to Ruhollah Latifi, Iran has exchanged some 64.3 million tons of non-oil products valued at $37.1 billion with the SCO member states in the first 10 months of the current Iranian year (March 21, 2023-January 20, 2024).

During the mentioned period, Iran exported 54.5 million tons of goods worth $18 billion to the SCO members, registering a slight 1.0 percent rise year-on-year.

Latifi noted that Iran’s exports to the bloc accounted for 48.2 percent of the weight and 44.4 percent of the value of the country’s total exports in the said 10 months.  

China, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Russia were the top five destinations for Iranian export products in the mentioned period, followed by Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Belarus, and Mongolia.

Iran also imported 9.7 million tons of products at a value of $19.1 billion from SCO in the said timespan, registering 17.9 and 10.5 percent rises in weight and value, respectively.

He highlighted that the imports from SCO members accounted for 29.7 percent of the weight and 35.2 percent of the value of Iran’s total imports in the period under review.

China, India, Russia, Pakistan, and Uzbekistan were the first five countries supplying the goods needed by Iran in the first 10 months of the current year.

Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Afghanistan, Mongolia, and Kyrgyzstan were also among the top exporters to Iran.

EF/MA