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Iranian minister: Trade turnover between Azerbaijan and Iran can be doubled

Business Materials 26 October 2010 19:02 (UTC +04:00)

Azerbaijan, Baku, Oct. 26 / Trend T.Jafarov A.Yusifzade /

The Azerbaijan-Iran relations continue to develop and in 2009 the trade turnover between the countries amounted to $ 550 million, Iran's Commerce Minister Mehdi Gazanfari told Trend Special Correspondent at the 17th media conference in Tehran on Tuesday.

"If some obstacles are removed, the trade turnover between the two countries could be increased to $1 billion and more," he said.

Gazanfari said the sanctions imposed against Iran did not affect the trade relations between Iran and European countries. In 2009, the trade turnover between Iran and France amounted to $2 billion and no significant decrease is observed on the volume of trade relations with other countries.

"Despite the sanctions, private European companies continue their economic activities with Iran. The sanctions did not particularly affect the economic situation in Iran. If the first sanctions against Iran would be successful, there would be no need to impose the next," he said.

Gazanfari believes the imposition of sanctions has no special powers in the 21st century, as the relations between the two countries widened.

"Today, the main problem is not in production, but in finding markets for goods. European countries want to be presented in the broad product market of Iran and it is evidence to the failure of sanctions," the minister said.

According to him, before Iran has imported technology and now the country exports it.

After the Islamic Revolution, Iran has implemented four major programs, each of which pursued a goal, but the most successful was the fourth program implemented in 2005-2009.

"In 2005-2009, we planned to ensure economic growth by investing $ 53 billion, but total funds amounted to $00 billion. In 2005, the figure amounted to $ 11 billion with the forecast of investments at $8.5 billion.  The figure hit $16.7 billion (9.5 billion) in 2006, $21 billion ($10.5 billion) in 2007, $23.3 billion ($11.6 billion) in 2008 and investment has grown by half in 2009 ($ 12.8 billion).

During the report period, the growth in imports amounted to 123 percent. During the first six months of 2010, 2,759 units of goods were exported to 157 countries and Iran imported 5,141,000 units of items from 134 countries. (The Iranian new year begins in March.)

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