TEHRAN – Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation hosted an Iran-Russia business forum in Moscow on Thursday, IRNA reported.

The trade convention was attended by senior officials from the two sides including Iran’s Ambassador to Russia Kazem Jalali, Head of Iran’s Trade Promotion Organization (TPO) Alireza Peyman-Pak, and President of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation Sergei Katyrin.

Representatives of 70 Iranian companies along with envoys from 300 Russian firms active in various sectors, including industry, technology, petrochemicals, medicine, and food industry, were also present at this gathering and held B2B meetings on trade issues.

A 70-member Iranian delegation arrived in Russia on Monday to attend this business forum and to hold talks with Russian counterparts.

This was considered the biggest Iranian business delegation ever to visit Russia while most of the attendees were representatives of Iran’s private sector.

Iran to export dairy products to Russia, EAEU

On the sidelines of the forum, Iranian officials also met with Head of Russia’s Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance Sergey Dankvert and discussed ways of expanding ties in this area.

During this meeting, the two sides agreed to prepare the ground for the exports of some dairy products from Iran to Russia and the members of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU).

They also discussed the development of cooperation in the supervision of standards in the production and trade of dairy products, aquaculture, plants, livestock and poultry.

Iran and Russia have been taking serious steps for boosting their mutual trade over the past few years.

In late January, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said that the Islamic Republic and Russia have reached an agreement to boost the trade between the two countries up to $10 billion.

“We agreed to remove trade barriers and boost the economic exchanges between the two countries. Currently, the level of mutual trade is not acceptable, so the two countries agreed to increase trade to $10 billion a year,” Raisi said on January 21, upon arrival to Tehran after a two-day visit to Moscow.

The president also noted that the two sides had also discussed monetary and banking issues during his talks with Russian officials.

“The two countries can take steps to break the dominance of the dollar over monetary and banking relations and trade with the national currency," Raisi stressed.

The two countries also agreed to identify mutual agricultural capacities as well as suitable areas for the exchange of agricultural products in order to increase the level of trade in the agricultural sector, according to the official.

He went on to say that the Islamic Republic of Iran has very good capacities in the field of transit and transportation, saying: “During this visit, it was agreed to activate the north-south corridor. This transit route will make the time and distance of transiting goods from Russia and different northern countries to the southern regions much shorter.”

EF/MA