TEHRAN- Iran and New Zealand signed an MOU on broadening agricultural cooperation, increasing volume of investments and gaining access to each other’s agro products markets.

The MOU was signed by Iran's Agriculture Minister Mahmoud Hojjati and New Zealand Foreign Minister Murray McCully in Tehran on Saturday, IRNA reported.

“New Zealand enjoys high capacity in agricultural sector and can have wide range of cooperation with the Islamic Republic in this regard,” Hojjati said, “It is a large producer of agro products and we can collaborate on presenting joint-processed products to different markets.”

New Zealand’s foreign minister, for his part, underlined that the signed document would be on agenda from the time on to help enhancement of all-out cooperation between the two countries.

Referring to the untapped commercial, economic and agricultural potentials of both sides, McCully said the two sides should enlarge cooperation in these fields.

This is reportedly the second visit of New Zealand’s foreign minister to Iran in the past eleven months.

Six month ago, in October 2015, in a meeting between Eamon O’Shaughnessy, New Zealand’s Ambassador to Iran, and Ali-Akbar Farazi, the deputy for international affairs of Iran Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines, and Agriculture (ICCIMA), the two sides stressed expansion of economic collaboration, the Public Relations Department of the ICCIMA reported.

“Economic cooperation between the two countries has slumped in recent years, but we are hopeful of expansion of bilateral trade in view of the positive changes in perspective,” Farazi was quoted as saying in the meeting.

O’Shaughnessy, for his part, stated that considering the changed international attitude to Iran, time is ripe for key decisions to be made to boost bilateral trade activities through wiping out banking and financial restrictions.

HJ/MA