Azernews.Az

By Aynur Jafarova

Iran and Kazakhstan keen on increasing the trade turnover to $ 5-10 billion, Iranian ambassador in Astana Gorban Seyfi stated, noting that now the figure stands at $1.2 billion.

Seyfi said Iran and Kazakhstan will discuss cooperation within the 13^th bilateral intergovernmental commission meeting this autumn in Tehran.

"We will discuss new opportunities for widening cooperation in the light of the commissioning of a new Kazakhstan-Turkmenistan-Iran railway," he said, adding that this project will be completed within several months.

According to him, there is a great potential for growth of trade turnover in the fields of food industry, transport sector and the development of transit transports.

Seyfi said Kazakhstan's main exports to Iran are grain and steel, while Iran's exports to Kazakhstan are food products -- fruits, flowers, greens and vegetables.

"We may jointly invest in establishment of vegetable stores. There are already granaries in Amirabad and Enzheburun on the border between Iran and Turkmenistan, located on the new railway's path. This will contribute to the increase of trade turnover," he said.

Furthermore, Seyfi said that Iran exports construction materials such as ceramics, tiles, plastics and petrochemical products to Kazakhstan

According to the ambassador, the Iranian companies are actively working in Kazakhstan, particularly, in the field of engineering, construction, road sector, agriculture and poultry farming. The parties also work on the joint telecommunication project.

Seyfi went on saying that Kazakhstan holds a special place in the foreign policy of Iran.

"One of priorities, mentioned in our Constitution is providing relations with Islamic countries, Kazakhstan is an Islamic state," the ambassador said.

Commenting on the stopping of the swap operations, the ambassador said that the swap operations between Kazakhstan and Iran may be resumed.

"The reasons of stopping swap operations of oil were technical in nature. Today we can safely resume swap operations," Seyfi said.

The ambassador said that Iran expresses readiness to provide oil swap operations. However, there are only about two tankers.

Iran stopped oil swap operations with the Caspian littoral states in April 2010 that it had been conducting for nearly 13 years. In July 2011, managing director of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) Ahmad Galebani announced the resumption of oil swap with Caspian states, saying that negotiations are underway on the volume of these operations.

The National Iranian Oil Company reported that the amount of swapping crude oil from Caspian states to the Persian Gulf region is nearly 20,000 barrels per day (bpd) and is expected to reach 70 ,000 bpd in coming months.

Oil delivered to Iran from Central Asian states is processed in Tehran and Tabriz and then sold in the Persian Gulf region.