Much needed: Iranian delegation to visit Pakistan next month

Officials to explore ways to increase bilateral trade, discuss investment opportunities in various sectors.

ISLAMABAD:

A delegation from Iran will arrive in Pakistan next month to address bottlenecks in the way of trade and investment between the two countries and explore opportunities under the new scenario following the nuclear deal by Iran and six major world powers.

A senior officer in the Ministry of Commerce told The Express Tribune that an official delegation will arrive in Islamabad in the first week of August to explore opportunities.

Iran has recently agreed with world powers to curb its nuclear programme. In return, economic sanctions placed on the country that have hindered its trade relations will likely be lifted following an inspection of its compliance with the agreement.

Read: Iran deal fuels tussle for gas pipelines in Pakistan

The Iranian delegation will meet Commerce Minister Khuram Dastgir, Finance Minister Ishaq Dar and Petroleum Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi to discuss issues of mutual importance.

“We will discuss the issues under the new scenario in the region as trade and commerce opportunities can be exploited after the sanction lift by the international community following the nuclear deal,” said a senior officer of Ministry of Commerce.

Earlier in April this year, Dastgir had headed a delegation to Iran and both sides had agreed to formulate a five-year facilitation plan to increase bilateral trade from the current level of $1 billion to $5 billion.

“There is a Preferential Trade Agreement between Iran and Pakistan, it can be converted into Free Trade Agreement after the ban is formally lifted,” said the officer.

“We had already agreed to form a working group to devise a substantial widening of the 2006 Pak-Iran Preferential Trade Agreement.”

Read: What the Iran agreement will mean for Pakistan?

The two sides also reiterated the need for joint investments in agro-food processing and infrastructure, particularly in the field of establishing an effective rail, road and sea links between the two countries.

Presently, Pakistan exports rice, kinnows, potatoes and meat, edible meat offal; edible fruits, nuts, melons, cotton, melons; cotton; paper and paperboard, and articles of pulp to Iran while imports chemicals, plastic products, bitumen, paraffin, iron scrap and many other chemicals and machinery related products.

The sanctions on Iran as well as indirect/informal trade, smuggling, non-availability of banking channels, custom duties, non-operational system of barter trade, transportation-related issues are hindering the volume of bilateral trade.

The officer said that there exist a lot of potential to increase the volume of bilateral trade by curtailing smuggling and increasing direct trade. “We hope that now the volume of trade can be substantially increased after streamlining the payment mechanism once the ban is lifted by the international community,” noted the officer.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 26^th, 2015.

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