Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 9
By Farhad Daneshvar – Trend:
Hungary has agreed to grant a 85 million euro line of credit in order to facilitate economic cooperation with Iran.
“[Hungary’s] Eximbank has established an 85 million euro credit line to facilitate cooperation between Hungarian and Iranian businesses, and to finance export-import transactions and the founding of joint ventures,” Hungarian government’s official news website reported.
Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade of Hungary Peter Szijjarto has said that several “encouraging agreements” have been concluded at the first session of the Hungarian-Iranian Joint Economic Committee held in Budapest over the current week.
“Now that the European Union has authorized negotiations, we can immediately begin talks on an investment protection agreement, Eximbank will begin developing direct, inter-bank cooperation and we also agreed that the Iranian import licensing authority will be paying special
attention to Hungarian products and technologies”, the Minister said at a joint press conference with Iranian Minister of Economic Affairs and Finance Ali Tayebnia.
According to the minister, the economic potential between Hungary and Iran is indicated by the fact that annual trade flow between the two countries used to be some $350 million, but fell back to roughly a tenth of that during the period of sanctions and currently stands at some 30
million dollars.
Tayebnia heading a delegation arrived in Hungary on Feb.7 to attend the Hungarian-Iranian Joint Economic Committee sessions.