Azerbaijan, Baku, Mar.6/ Trend, F. Milad
Inter-regional trade accounts for just 7.5 per cent of Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) member states' overall trade, Mohammad Nahavandian, the head of Iran Chamber of Commerce, Industries & Mines said on Wednesday.
Inter-regional trade between ECO member states currently stands at 62 billion dollars, the IRNA News Agency quoted Nahavandian as saying.
Based on a ten-year plan, ECO members will boost their inter-regional trade by one per cent per year, he said at the sidelines of the 3rd meeting of energy and oil ministers of the Economic Cooperation Organization, which is being held in Tehran.
Nahavandian is representing the Iranian private sector in the event.
The three-day event's main focus is on the expansion of regional cooperation and the exchange of experiences, as well as promoting free trade in the field of energy.
The first and the second meetings of ECO ministers were held in 2000 and 2010 in Pakistan and Tajikistan, respectively.
The ECO is an intergovernmental regional organization established in 1985 by Iran, Pakistan and Turkey which provides a platform to promote economic, technical and cultural cooperation among member states.
The organization was expanded in 1992 to include seven new members, including Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.