A 125-strong business delegation from Russia made up of representatives of 78 companies are scheduled to visit Tehran from Sept. 19-21 to meet their Iranian counterparts and survey ways of expanding bilateral cooperation.
Members of the visiting delegation are active in a host of fields, including agriculture, food industries and related machinery, mineral water, beverages, grains, chocolate and pastry, edible oils, fisheries, packaging, health, pharmaceuticals, medical equipment, construction materials, glass and crystal, wood industries, auto spare parts, transportation, industrial machinery, metal industries, radio and telecommunication systems, excavation, energy, recycling, digital marketing and education, the news portal of Tehran Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture reported.
The upcoming visit is part of an agreement between Tehran Chamber of Commerce and the Russian Export Center.
The delegation is said to be the biggest ever to visit Iran.
Businesspeople from chambers of commerce across the country can register to take part in the event.
Each Iranian company can register to meet with only five Russian businesses and for 15 minutes each. The Iranian sides are required to name the Russian companies they want to meet with in their registration form.
On Sept. 21, startups and knowledge-based companies have been prioritized to hold talks with their Russian counterparts.
Iranian companies willing to attend the event have until Sept. 6 to fill in and send their registration forms to TCCIM.
Bilateral Trade at $1.7b in 2021
According to the data released by the Islamic Republic of Iran Customs Administration, Russia exported $1.7 billion worth of goods to Iran in 2021 to account for 3.1% of Iran’s total imports.
In return, Russia imported around $1.1 billion worth of goods from Iran, accounting for 1.2% of Iran’s total exports last year.
Russia’s 2021 export to Iran increased by 56% and Russia’s import from Iran rose 15% in comparison with 2020.
About 66% of Russia’s total export value to Iran were cereals, mainly wheat.
The main product exported to Russia from Iran were pistachio, with a share of 9.1% in total exports.
Trade in National Currencies
Iran and Russia have started trading in their national currencies.
Iran’s Ambassador in Moscow Kazem Jalali said recently that entities in the two countries have begun conducting trade in rials and rubles for the first time, which were handled by the Russian Central Bank’s Mir system, IRNA reported.
Russia set up Mir in 2014 in response to sanctions over the conflict with Ukraine.
Iran and Russia have been working toward using their own currencies for business relations for some time. Iranian Economy Minister Ehsan Khandouzi announced in July that the Islamic Republic has officially ditched the US dollar for trade with Russia.
The same month, Tehran Stock Exchange launched rial-ruble trading.
Like other countries, Iran typically conducts trade in US dollars. Trading with Russia in rials and rubles allows Iran to further bypass the US-dominant global financial system. For example, in 2019, the international financial messaging system SWIFT cut access for most Iranian banks under pressure from Washington.
Some Russian banks were also barred from using SWIFT in February in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The US dollar could be losing a small bit of its dominance in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia and China have also discussed pricing oil deals in yuan instead of the dollar. India also decided last month to allow rupee payments for imports and exports, which could also boost trade with Iran, Al-Monitor reported.
Transit of 10m Tons of Goods Along INSTC
Iran and Russia have agreed on details of their plan to transit 10 million tons of goods along the International North-South Transportation Corridor, the news portal of the Ministry of Roads and Urban Development of Iran reported on Saturday.
The agreement was reached during a meeting of the two sides’ transportation officials in Moscow on June 28-29.
The Iranian side was led by deputy minister of roads and urban development for transportation, Shahriyar Afandizadeh. He was accompanied by deputies and managers from the Civil Aviation Organization of Iran, Ports and Maritime Organization, and the Construction and Development of Transportation Infrastructures Company as well as representatives of private sector in marine and road transportation.
The Russian side was led by Dmitry Zverev, deputy transport minister.
Afandizadeh and his Russian counterpart signed a protocol for their agreement.
A wide range of subjects related to cooperation in transit and transportation were discussed during the two-day meeting, but the transit of 10 million tons of goods along the corridor was the main topic.
INSTC is a major transit route designed to facilitate the transportation of goods from Mumbai in India to Helsinki in Finland, using Iranian ports and railroads, which the Islamic Republic plans to connect to those of Azerbaijan and Russia.
The corridor, which will connect Iran with Russia’s Baltic ports and give Russia rail connectivity to both the Persian Gulf and the Indian rail network was high on the agenda of Iran’s Minister of Roads and Urban Development Rostam Qasemi in his recent visit to Moscow.
With the operationalization of the corridor, goods could be carried from Mumbai to the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas and further to Baku. They could then pass across the Russian border into Astrakhan before proceeding to Moscow and St. Petersburg, before entering Europe.
INSTC would substantially cut the travel time for everything from Asian consumer goods to Central Eurasia’s natural resources to advanced European exports.
The Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines recently started piloting the multimodal transit of cargo along INSTC carrying goods from Russia to India, according to the head of the Iranian-Russian Solyanka Port in Astrakhan.
“The consignments are two 40-feet containers of wood laminates weighing a total of 41 tons. The containers were loaded at St. Petersburg and are heading toward Astrakhan where they will be loaded again at Solyanka Port. They will then traverse the Caspian Sea to reach Iran’s Anzali Port where they are scheduled to be transported to Bandar Abbas port city in southern Iran via trucks. The two containers will then be dispatched to India’s largest container port, Jawaharlal Nehru,” Darioush Jamali was also quoted as saying by IRNA.
The official estimated that the transit of this first trial consignment, as part of collaboration between the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Line Group’s representative logistic companies in Russia and India, will take less than 25 days.
“The shipments will be using one-way bill along the journey. We hope that this first transit via INSTC will lead to considerable revenues and a boost in transit and logistics in Iran, Russia and India,” he added.
Solyanka is one of the 15 ports located in Astrakhan’s Economic Zone, which is the busiest of them all. Some 53% of Solyanka Port’s shares belong to the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Line Group.
The Russian port of Astrakhan is a hub for commercial activities of nearly 200 Iranian firms, which make the port the largest center of Iranians’ economic activities in Russia.
Iran’s first House of Commerce was inaugurated in Astrakhan in October 2017 for boosting and facilitating trade between Iran and Russia.
Talks to Complete INSTC’s Missing Link
A Russian delegation of rail officials met with the deputy head of construction and development at Transportation Infrastructure Company of Iran, Kheirollah Khademi, in Tehran last week to survey different aspects and opportunities in Russia’s cooperation for constructing the Rasht-Astara railroad.
During the meeting, officials from Iran’s Ministry of Roads and Urban Development, as well as managers, experts, contractors and engineers engaged in the project were present, IRNA reported.
“If the financial resources are provided, Rasht-Astara railroad, which is a missing link along the International North-South Transportation Corridor, will be completed within three or four years,” Khademi was quoted as saying.
The official noted that INSTC links Northern Europe, Scandinavia and Russia, through Iran, to the littoral states of the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean and Southeast Asia, adding that the route is the cheapest and fastest transit route connecting these countries to one another.
“The meeting was held because the inauguration of INSTC is very important for the two sides and we are surveying ways of expanding bilateral cooperation in designing, executing and determining the technical features of the route,” he said.
