TEHRAN - Export Guarantee Fund of Iran (EGFI) has been ranked first in terms of performance among the members of the Aman Union, IRNA reported on Monday, quoting the EGFI head.

Afrouz Bahrami, who is visiting Iraq to attend an Iran-Iraq joint trade committee, said “The performance of the Iranian Export Guarantee Fund has been ranked first among all the similar funds in the region.”

The official further noted that to provide better services to the Iranian exporters of goods and services in Iraq, two EGFI representative offices are going to be established in the Kurdistan and southern Iraqi regions.

“We need the Iraqi authorities’ support and cooperation in order to accomplish this goal, although the first office is already ready to be inaugurated in the Kurdistan region,” she said.

Elsewhere in her remarks, Bahrami stated that in order to facilitate and develop the cooperation between the two countries in the field of engineering services, the two sides have discussed replacing contract-based warranties issued by EGFI with bank guarantees.

“The two sides reached an agreement on the matter and now it only requires correspondence and follow-up by Iranian officials in Baghdad,” she added.

The Iran-Iraq joint trade committee is aimed to pursue the agreements reached between the two countries during the Iranian presidential trip to Iraq.

The committee will examine two basic issues of addressing the priorities of cooperation between the two countries in order to realize the two sides’ $20-billion trade target and removing barriers to trade.

The committee focuses on eight key factors in Iran and Iraq’s economic ties, including trade, banking issues, standards, customs, industrial and investment issues, technical and engineering services, transportation and transit, and solutions for increasing interactions between the two countries.

Aman Union was launched in October 2009 following an agreement between the Arab Investment and Export Credit Guarantee Corporation (DHAMAN) and the Islamic Corporation for the Insurance of Investment and Export Credit (ICIEC) to join their efforts for establishing a union for commercial and non-commercial risks Insurers and Reinsurers in their respective Member Countries.

EF/MA