Azernews.Az

Friday March 29 2024

Iran, Turkmenistan keen on bringing trade to $60 bln

23 November 2015 11:35 (UTC+04:00)
Iran, Turkmenistan keen on bringing trade to $60 bln

By Aynur Karimova

Iran and Turkmenistan, the two energy-rich countries, have decided to bring their bilateral trade up to $60 billion within 10 years.

This was announced by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani at a press conference on the sidelines of a meeting with his visiting Turkmen counterpart, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov in Tehran on November 22, Iranian media reported.

“Today the two countries once again emphasized boosting friendly and brotherly ties,” he said.

He also noted that during a meeting with Berdymukhamedov, they discussed cooperation in the fields of gas, electricity, railway and road transport, as well as industry, agriculture, tourism and cultural issues.

"Tehran and Ashgabat also agreed to open a barter account for bartering Turkmen gas with Iran’s technical and engineering services," Rouhani added.

Gas swap, barter deals, purchase of water from third states, Caspian Sea legal regime, and fight against drug trafficking also were among the discussed issues.

Berdymukhamedov was in Tehran to attend the third summit of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) and discuss bilateral ties with Rouhani.

As part of the visit, the two countries signed nine memorandums of understanding (MoU) on mutual cooperation in various sectors, including health, postal service, construction of electricity transmission lines, sports, road construction, railway transport, standards, as well as Radio and TV broadcasting.

Turkmenistan is the largest supplier of natural gas to Iran. The most convenient transportation route for Turkmen resources to the energy markets of the region passes through Iran.

Turkmenistan was the seventh leading importer of Iranian non-oil goods in the previous Iranian calendar year, which ended on March 20, 2015, according to the Iran Customs Administration.

The value of bilateral trade between Iran and Turkmenistan exceeded $4 billion in 2014.

Iran exported $973.65 million of non-oil goods to Turkmenistan and imported $113.72 million of non-oil goods from the country.

--

Aynur Karimova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Aynur_Karimova

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz

Loading...
Latest See more