TEHRAN, Iran, April 7
Trend:
Iran and Turkey are to resume trade by opening land border in upcoming days, said the head of Iran-Turkey Joint Chamber of Commerce.
Mehradad Saadat Dehghan has discussed the latest developments in trade between the two countries in an interview with Trend.
"Iran-Turkey Joint Chamber of Commerce has taken efforts to import goods from Turkey via railway and resume export from Iran, and the volume of cargo transportation is increasing every day," Dehghan said.
"There are certain limitations, but the process has been very satisfactory. The trade has been resumed only recently, so there are no specific statistics available," he said. "Furthermore, Turkey has recently issued the permit to unload food items with short expiration date especially agriculture products."
"The total volume of trade between two countries during last Iranian year(from March 21, 2019 to March 20, 2020) was around $6 billion including trade of oil, gas and petrochemical products," the head of the chamber said adding that due to pipeline explosion, the gas export to Turkey was cut, but in the coming days gas export via the pipeline will resume.
"We seek to increase trade via land. It's not possible to close borders with Turkey. Turkey is our strategic partner for cargo transit. Given that the major part of Iran's imports from Europe are not permitted to transit via Turkey due to coronavirus, we are trying to solve the problem. Thus, the issue of transportation of cargo on trucks will be addressed soon, since Iran is also a strategic location for Turkey in this regard," he said.
"Turkey's export to East and Central Asia has always been transited via Iran; therefore, the two countries are keen to solve the issue and Iran-Turkey joint chamber of commerce is working to open land borders," Dehghan said.
"At the moment, there is no truck transportation. When coronavirus was first detected, only Turkish trucks were allowed to transport goods by Turkish authorities, but now their trips are also suspended," he added. "Since recently, Iran has not let Turkish trucks to enter the country either, while both sides are inclined to resume the trade."
"The Iran-Turkey Joint Chamber of Commerce is taking steps to resume the trade via land borders in coming days," he said.