TEHRAN – The 5th session of the Iran-Iraq joint economic commission kicked off on Sunday with the purpose of shoring up economic cooperation between the two countries. 

Given consultations with Iraqi authorities in line with the efforts of the 13th Iranian government to effectively hold joint economic commissions with the target countries, especially neighbors, the 5th session of the joint economic commission of the Islamic Republic of Iran and Iraq will be held from the 12 to 14 March in Baghdad, the Iranian foreign ministry said in a statement. 

Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister for Economic Diplomacy Mehdi Safari has referred to the issue. He said an Iranian delegation consisting of representatives of the public and private sectors, especially a group of Iranian businesspeople, headed by the Minister of Economic Affairs and Finance, will travel to Baghdad to discuss important issues of cooperation in various fields such as banking, transportation and transit, agriculture, investment, insurance, trade and commerce, export of technical and engineering services, energy, science, sports, etc.

The two sides will sign various documents with the aim of deepening bilateral cooperation.

It is worthy of note that the volume of trade between Iran and Iraq in the first 10 months of the Persian year of 1401 was about $9mn. During this period, Iranian exports increased by 23% to more than $8.9 billion while imports from Iraq decreased by 84% to $146mn.

The 4th session of the Iran-Iraq joint economic commission was held in January 2021 and hosted by the Iranian Ministry of Energy in Tehran.

Considering Iran's vast export capacity and Iraq's large market for Iranian goods, both sides want to expand the volume of bilateral economic exchanges.

As announced on Friday by a board member of the Iran-Iraq Joint Chamber of Commerce, the value of Iran’s daily exports to Iraq is about $30 million, half of which is related to oil and gas exports, and the other half is related to goods exports.

Hamid Hosseini said, “Considering the favorable situation of exports to Iraq this [Iranian calendar) year (ends on March 20), it is expected that our export record to this country will be broken and exceeds $9 billion.”

“Although our exports to Iraq experienced some problems during a period of this year, statistics show that Iran's exports to Iraq are currently favorable”, he added.

Iran and Iraq have set a target of $20 billion in annual trade, and businessmen and authorities of both countries are determined to meet that target, Ale-Es’haq said at the time.