Baku, Azerbaijan, April 6
By Khalid Kazimov - Trend:
Tehran is seeking a way to use its frozen oil revenues in India to buy goods from third countries by making Delhi remove tariffs on the goods, said Iranian Deputy Minister of Industry, Mine, and Trade Valiollah Afkhami Rad.
He pointed out that during the first joint Iran-India workgroup that part of Iran's oil revenue is frozen in India.
"We want actions to be taken for Iran to be able to use the financial resources for buying products from third countries with the least price possible, that is, the Indian government should not impose tariffs on the products," he said, Mehr news agency reported April 6.
Iran is selling oil to India but cannot be paid because of international sanctions on the country's oil industry. Therefore, the two countries are trying to find indirect ways to make a trade-off.
Afkhami Rad also welcomed signing a preferential trade agreement between Iran and India, announcing that a list of products has been prepared to be included in a preferential agreement.
"We are willing to solve problems related to tariffs in order to boost trade. Some products which are exported to India from Iran have high tariffs, which reduce their competition power in the Indian market," Afkhami Rad stated.
India was the 4th biggest importer of Iranian non-oil goods in the previous Iranian calendar year, which ended on March 20, 2014, according to the Iran Customs Administration.
Iran exported $2.417 billion of non-oil goods to India and imported $4.31 billion of non-oil goods from the country.
In February 18, Iran's Deputy Oil Minister Abbas Sheri Moqaddam said that India was seeking to invest in Iran's petrochemical industry, as a way to repay the frozen assets.
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