Azernews.Az

By Sara Rajabova

Mohammad Baqer Bahrami, Iran's former ambassador to Azerbaijan, said Iran and Azerbaijan have the capacity to boost their trade turnover up to $10 billion.

Bahrami said the two countries' trade is currently below $1 billion which is completely unacceptable, Iran's IRNA News Agency reported.

Speaking about Azerbaijani President's recent visit to Iran, Bahrami said it would have been better if this visit was made earlier.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev paid official visit to Tehran on April 9.

"Iran and Azerbaijan have many things in common. So the two neighboring countries can have better relations," Bahrami said.

He expressed hope that by pursuing a new approach, Tehran and Baku can manage to boost their bilateral trade soon.

Touching upon the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Bahrami said Iran has good neighborly relations with Armenia, so it can play an important role in solving the Nagorno-Karabakh crisis.

Iran always voiced readiness to help the settlement of the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

Azerbaijan and Iran have had diplomatic relations since 1918. Iran recognized Azerbaijan's independence in 1991, and diplomatic relations between the two countries were established in 1992.

Iran Customs Administration's latest report suggests that the trade turnover between Tehran and Baku surpassed $514 million in the previous Iranian calendar year, which ended on March 20.

Iran's exports to Azerbaijan accounted for $482 million of the mentioned figure. Tehran also imported $32 million worth of goods from Baku in the mentioned period.

The mentioned figures show that Iran's trade balance with Azerbaijan stood at $450 million previous year.

Iran exported 2,130 cars worth $15,080,000 to Azerbaijan last year, which is 21.5 per cent more than in the preceding year.

Iran's total non-oil exports to foreign countries (excluding gas condensates) stood at $31.332 billion in the previous year, while the country's total imports amounted to $50.818 billion.

The figures mark annual trade balance of negative $19.486 billion for Iran.