Iran, India pledge to boost trade ties
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Iranian and Indian business leaders have pledged to boost trade ties. Currently, the bilateral trade is worth $15 billion and expected to hit $25 billion by 2016.
Mohammad Mehdi Rasekh, the secretary general of Tehran's Chamber of Commerce, said Sunday the existing potentials are way beyond the current bilateral trade volume.
An 80-member Indian business delegation is currently in Iran for discussions.
Bilateral economic and political cooperation will not only benefit Iran and India but also help promote peace and security in the region and the world, said Rashid Alvi, head of the delegation that arrived here on Friday.
Iran, as a long-standing friend to India, has made considerable progress in all sectors and is a promising country, which India hopes to boost ties with, said Alvi, also a spokesperson of India's Congress party.
The global financial crisis has shown that there was no choice but to strengthen regional cooperation to minimize the impact, he added.
The value of Iran-India business transactions will hit $25 billion in the next four years, joint secretary of India's commerce and industry ministry Arvind Mehta said during a meeting with Iranian businessmen in Tehran Saturday.
He put the current volume of bilateral transactions at $15 billion, Xinhua quoted the Iranian official Press TV as saying. Iran sells oil to India worth about $13 billion annually, while imports goods worth about $2.5 billion from India.
The five-day visit of the Indian business delegation will play an important role in enhancing mutual ties, Mehta said.
Iran has, meanwhile, agreed to receive over 40 per cent of its oil revenue from exports to India in rupees.
The UN Security Council and Western countries have imposed a series of economic sanctions on Iran in the recent past over the country's controversial nuclear program.
Most of the Iranian financial institutions are barred from directly accessing the financial systems of the US and the European Union.
Iran says its nuclear programme is for generating electricity but US and its Western allies suspect it could be a ploy to acquire nuclear weapons.
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