A trade delegation led by Kazakhstan’s Prime Minister Alikhan Smailov is scheduled to visit Iran on April 26 at the invitation of First Vice President Mohammad Mokhber, Iran’s Foreign Ministry has announced.
The delegation will hold talks to expand economic and commercial relations with Iran, the news portal of Iran Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture reported.
The chamber plans to host a conference on the occasion of the upcoming visit.
Prospects for expanding cooperation in the agricultural, transport and logistics sectors were discussed by Smailov and outgoing Iranian Agriculture Minister Javad Sadati-Nejad in Astana, Kazakhstan, Kazinform reported in January, citing the Kazakh prime minister’s press service.
“Particularly promising is the increase of turnover in agricultural products, the share of which in mutual trade is almost 80%. Our countries have an opportunity to increase the turnover of agricultural products up to $1 billion,” Smailov said.
“In general, the government of Kazakhstan is set to work actively to achieve the goal of increasing the total volume of trade to $3 billion, set by the two countries’ leaders.”
Smailov emphasized that one of the key areas of cooperation is also the transport and logistics sphere, where the International North-South Transportation Corridor is of particular importance.
“Adoption of joint measures on building transport capacities of this route, in particular, and signing and implementing the roadmap on the elimination of bottlenecks can significantly increase the volume of cargo transportation in the near future,” he said.
According to the Kazakh premier, the implementation of roadmap will make it possible to increase the corridor's traffic capacity by up to 10 million tons a year by 2025.
Iran's imports from Kazakhstan increased by 51.6% in value and 20.6% in volume, during the first 11 months of the last Iranian year (March 21, 2022 through Feb. 19, 2023), compared with the same period of the preceding Iranian year.
During the period, Iran imported a total of 265,000 tons of goods worth more than $119 million from Kazakhstan.
Imports amounted to 220,000 tons worth approximately $78.7 million for the first 11 months in the preceding Iranian year.
Iran mainly imported tractors, wheat, barley and mining machinery from Kazakhstan during the period.
Overall, Iran imported 33.6 million tons of goods worth $53.7 billion during March 21, 2022, through Feb. 19, 2023.
This is an increase of 15.2% in value, while a decrease of 8.61% in volume year-on-year, AzerNews reported.
