Iran’s ambassador pushes for more trade

Wants business communities of both countries to explore potential areas

ISLAMABAD: Iran has urged the need to explore trade and investment potential borne out of the lifting of sanctions, aimed at increasing bilateral trade with Pakistan.

Mehdi Honardoost, Ambassador of Iran to Pakistan, said this while addressing the business community at the Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI) on Thursday.



The ambassador urged Pakistan’s private sector to step up efforts to promote trade with Iran as both countries have immense potential to enhance two-way trade in many areas including agriculture, horticulture, fisheries, petroleum products and many more.



He said Iran-Afghanistan bilateral trade was over $2 billion prior to the sanctions, but Pak-Iran bilateral trade dwindled to around $270 million.

The ambassador said that since the sanctions had been lifted, Iran was poised to undertake many infrastructure development projects while many European companies were visiting Iran to explore business opportunities. He said that time was ripe for Pakistani investors to focus on mega projects in Iran, otherwise, others would grab these opportunities.



He noted that Pakistan was working with Iran on a few projects to import electricity. Emphasising the potential trade opportunities for energy, he remarked, “Iran could supply cheapest gas and electricity to Pakistan”.

The ambassador mentioned that Iran was ready to further facilitate Pakistan to materialise gas pipeline project. He said Iran has 15 neighbours, but Iran preferred to strengthen trade and economic ties with Pakistan.

He said ICCI should take a delegation to Iran and explore new avenues of cooperation as private sectors of both countries need to take the lead. He assured that his embassy would extend all possible cooperation to ICCI delegation for making its visit productive.

ICCI President Atif Ikram Sheikh said Pakistani businessmen were interested in promoting trade with Iran, however, dearth of direct flights between Islamabad and Tehran, lack of Pakistani banks’ branches in Iran and vice versa, high import tariffs of Iran on Pakistani exports, Iran’s import permit system and non-tariff barriers were the major hurdles in promoting bilateral trade. He said if these issues were resolved, bilateral trade between Pakistan and Iran could go up to $5 billion in the next few years.



The ICCI president said that Pak-Iran preferential trade agreement should be activated and both countries should facilitate businessmen seeking to organise single country exhibitions. He said both countries have the potential to compliment the other in many areas including tourism and they should encourage holding of regular meetings of Joint Border Trade & Joint Trade Committees.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 5^th,  2016.

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