Baku, Azerbaijan, Apr.11
By Fatih Karimov - Trend:
Holding joint economic meetings between Iranian and German businessmen could lead to an increase to the bilateral trade to €8 billion in the future.
Iranian industry minister Mohammad Reza Nematzadeh, who leads an economic delegation to Germany, urged German investors to benefit from opportunities which have been created after the Geneva agreement between Iran and the P5+1, Iran's Mehr news agency reported on April 11.
After the Geneva agreement, French, Italian, Austrian, and German companies started to re-enter Iranian market, he added.
"Annual trade between Iran and Germany has not ever dropped below $3 billion, even under the international sanctions," Nematzadeh said.
Germany was the leading European trade partner of Iran in the past Iranian calendar year, which ended on March 20, the Iranian Customs Administration said.
Germany exported $2.451 billion worth of goods to Iran and imported $335 million worth of goods from Iran in the past Iranian year.
Germany was also the biggest exporter of textile to Iran. It exported some $865 million worth of textile to Iran in the past year.
On January 14, chairman of Iranian chamber of commerce Gholamhossein Shafei said expansion of trade ties between Iran and Germany will lead to sustainable political relations between the two countries.
Shafei made the statement in a meeting with German Ambassador to Iran Michael Freiherr von Ungern-Sternberg in Tehran.
The German ambassador, for his part, stated that it is very unfortunate that Iran-Germany economic and trade ties have declined in the past years, and that Germans are unsatisfied with the fact.
In a meeting with Iran's President Hassan Rouhani on October 7, 2013, Freiherr von Ungern said that his country attaches great importance to economic relations with Iran.
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