TEHRAN – Iran’s commercial attaché to Brazil has said the Islamic Republic’s exports to Brazil nearly doubled in the previous Iranian calendar year 1401(ended on March 20) as compared to the preceding year, IRNA reported.

According to Mir-Abutaleb Badri, the value of Iran’s exports to the South American country reached $134 million in the previous Iranian year, from $70 million in the year 1400.

He put the total annual trade between the two countries at about $5.0 billion of which the share of Brazil exports to Iran is about $4.6 billion.

Brazil's main export items to Iran are oilseeds, animal feed and meat and Iran's exports to this country include urea fertilizer, petrochemical products, pistachios and raisins.

In mid-August, Iran’s Trade Promotion Organization (TPO) hosted a conference on Iran-Brazil trade opportunities and challenges.

The event was attended by senior officials including TPO Head Mehdi Zeyghami, head of Iran-Brazil Joint Chamber of Commerce Fakhredin Amerian, Director General of TPO’s Europe and America Department Ahmad Firouzi, and Iranian Ambassador to Brazil Hossein Gharibi, along with a handful of the country’s traders, entrepreneurs, and businessmen.

At the beginning of the conference, Firouzi listed some of the challenges and difficulties that Iranian businessmen are facing in trade with Latin American countries, especially Brazil, and said: “Such difficulties and challenges have been the main reason for holding the third edition of the Iran-Brazil Trade Opportunities Conference with the aim of identifying the obstacles and examining the ways to develop trade with the country.”

Further in the event, Zeyghami for his part referred to TPO’s plans for the development of trade with Brazil, saying: “Trade with Brazil is very important for us, and the frequency of various conferences in this regard is indicative of this importance.”

The official pointed to distance, logistics, lack of direct shipping lines, and financial issues, as the main reasons for the lack of trade with Latin American countries, adding that: “however, the policy of the Trade Promotion Organization is to increase the export product groups as well as markets, and for this reason, trade with Latin America is important for us.”

He stated that the volume of exports to Brazil is less than the imports from this country and added: “The organization is following special programs to facilitate exports to Brazil, one of which is sending a commercial attaché to the country.”

Also in early March, Brazilian Ambassador to Iran Laudemar Gonsalves de Aguiar Neto said that Tehran and Brasília need to enhance their bilateral trade relations.

The ambassador addressed reporters on the second day of his trip to Abadan, Khuzestan Province, in southwestern Iran where he said that the Brazilian government is seeking to increase the level of trade with Iran.

Referring to the economic plans for bolstering mutual economic ties, Aguiar said that business people of the two countries would communicate with each other in accordance with an economic schedule.

EF/MA