Kazakhstan-Iran decide to promote their economic ties to $3 billion
TEHRAN/ISLAMABAD: Kazakhstan and Iran are discussing ways and means to further enhance their bilateral economic cooperation.
For this purpose, Kazakh Prime Minister Alikhan Smailov reached Tehran on Wednesday and met with Iranian First Vice-President Mohammad Mokhber to discuss the strengthening of economic cooperation.
In a joint meeting with Prime Minister of Kazakhstan, Mokhber said economic cooperation between two countries was not at the political level of cooperation that the two countries enjoy.
“In agreement with the Prime Minister of Kazakhstan, it was decided to raise the level of relations to 3 billion dollars,” IRNA said quoting Mokhber.
He added, “In two meetings with the presence of the Prime Minister of Kazakhstan and the accompanying delegation, good decisions were made and it was decided to quickly develop a temporary road map between Iran and Kazakhstan.”
The Prime Minister of Kazakhstan Alikhan Smailov thanked Iran for inviting him to visit Tehran.
“Now the long negotiations ended with good agreements, the details of which were fully explained by the First Vice-president of Iran.”
He noted, “Iran and Kazakhstan have good neighborly and friendly relations. Constructive political dialogues have been established between the two countries and economic and cultural relations are developing.”
Meanwhile, during a meeting between Head of Iran Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines, and Agriculture (ICCIMA) Gholam-Hossein Shafeie and Kazakhstan’s Deputy Minister of Trade and Integration Kairat Torebayev, the two sides discussed the ways for the expansion of trade ties between the two countries.
In the meeting held at the place of ICCIMA, Shafeie emphasized the special position of Kazakhstan as a trade partner for Iran and said the presence of the two countries in the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) pacts has opened new doors for the development of economic relations, and the private sectors of the two countries should take advantage of this opportunity, the ICCIMA portal reported on Wednesday.
Emphasizing that paying attention to rail, road and sea transportation infrastructure should be a priority of the two countries, the ICCIMA head stated: “The most important problem in the way of improving the level of trade cooperation between Iran and Kazakhstan is the issue of transportation.
Solving this issue requires the will of the authorities of the two countries. The future of transit between the two countries can be bright due to Kazakhstan’s connection to China and Iran’s access to the open waters of Southeast Asia, provided that the infrastructure for exploiting this opportunity is available.”
The Kazakh official for his part emphasized that his country is seeking to improve business relations with Iran as much as possible and said: “Iran is our main way to communicate with Turkey and West Asia. So far, we have had 20 million dollars in financial transactions, and the aim of these meetings is to increase this amount to 60 million dollars.”
“Our economies have a good overlap. We are looking for further development of relations between the two countries, especially in the field of vegetables, fruits and fisheries”, he added.
