Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 22
By Fatih Karimov - Trend:
Preferential trade with Turkey could be beneficial for Iran in the long term.
Turkish Ambassador to Iran Riza Hakan Tekin said the agreement could provide good trade opportunities for both countries, Iran's ISNA news agency reported on Feb. 22.
"Naturally, some Iranian producers may disapprove of the preferential trade agreement and think that the agreement could harm the domestic production," he added.
He said that using national currencies instead of the dollar in the bilateral trade could facilitate transactions to a great extent. "The decision has not been made to deal with sanctions [against Iran]. It is just intended to streamline the bilateral trade. Although we do not believe in effectiveness of the sanctions, but we follow the sanctions imposed by the UN."
Iran and Turkey signed the agreement with the goal of boosting bilateral trade in January 2014.
The preferential trade agreement took effect on January 1, 2015.
Under the agreement, 125 items of Iranian goods and 140 items of Turkish goods will be traded on preferential terms.
The volume of trade turnover between Turkey and Iran was at its highest level in 2012 with $9.9 billion worth exports and $12 billion worth imports, according to official data released by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK).
But, after 2012, trade between the two countries showed a downward trend because of the Syrian conflict in the region. The exports to Iran were $4.2 billion and imports $10.4 billion in 2013. Despite the sharp decrease in exports, imports weren't influenced like that because of the natural gas imported from Iran.