TEHRAN – Tehran Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture (TCCIMA) hosted a meeting with a trade delegation from Russia’s Republic of Bashkortostan during which the two sides discussed ways for expanding trade ties.

In this meeting the Russian side invited the Iranian private sector to cooperate with their Bashkir counterparts in various areas, especially for extraterrestrial cultivation in Bashkortostan, the TCCIMA portal reported.

The Russian delegation, who traveled to Tehran to attend the 26th International Oil, Gas, Refining and Petrochemical Exhibition of Iran (Iran Oil Show 2022), expressed their willingness for the development of economic cooperation between Iran and the Republic of Bashkortostan.

Speaking at the meeting, TCCIMA Deputy Head for International Affairs Hesamedin Hallaj underlined the importance of developing economic relations between Iran and Russia and said that recent international developments have created new opportunities for cooperation between the two countries, and an important part of these opportunities is related to oil and gas sectors.

Hallaj expressed hope that the two sides would be able to interact with each other to identify short-term and long-term opportunities for cooperation by providing transparent information.

“The volume of trade between Iran and Russia is about four billion dollars, of which approximately three billion dollars are related to Russia's exports to Iran and the value of Iran's exports to Russia is about one billion dollars,” he said.

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 sides 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