Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb.2
By Fatih Karimov - Trend:
Iran and China will hold their 15th joint economic committee meeting on February 22-23 in Tehran, IRNA reported on Sunday.
The two sides will sign a comprehensive deal titled "the roadmap for infrastructural boosting of Iran-China economic relations", which includes different sectors, such as industry, oil, gas and petrochemicals, telecommunications, banking, transportation, and energy.
China is Iran's biggest oil costumer, second goods supplier and first non-oil commodities importer in the world.
The country which recently overtook the U.S. as the world's biggest oil importer, has imported 16.01 million tons of Iranian oil during the first nine months of the current year, according to Chinese Customs.
The amount equals to 428,160 barrels per day.
Therefore, China imported more than $12.3 billion dollars worth of Iranian oil during the first three quarters of 2013.
The chairman of the Iran-China Joint Chamber of Commerce, Asadollah Asgaroladi predicted on October 6 that trade between Iran and China will decline by 20 percent in the current year, ISNA reported.
Bilateral trade including oil, petrochemicals, and gas condensates amounted to $35 billion in the past year. However the figure will fall by 20 percent in the current year, he stressed.
In 2012, China invested $1.2 billion in Iran he said, adding that the figure dropped to $200 million in 2013. This means Iran would have about a $13 billion positive balance in trade with China in the current year.
...