A meeting of Iran-Azerbaijan Economic Commission, co-chaired by Iran’s Minister of Communications and Information Technology Mahmoud Vaezi and Azerbaijan’s Economy Minister Shahin Mustafayev was held in Anzali Free Trade Zone in the northern Gilan Province on Thursday. The completion of the joint under-construction rail projects as part of the grand International North-South Corridor–a rail and road transportation network for moving freight from India to Europe through Central Asia, Caucasus and Russia–was the main topic of discussion, IRNA reported. The Azeri minister said his country is ready to invest in the Iranian part of the railroad as Baku earlier pledged to open a $500 million credit line to finance the project According to Mustafayev, when completed, the Iran-Azerbaijan part of the rail route is expected to initially increase the 600,000 tons of commodities currently traded between the two countries to 5 million tons and later to 10 million tons per year. Iran-Azerbaijan trade in the first quarter of 2016 increased 53% compared with the similar period of the previous year to stand at $41.4, according to the State Customs Committee of the Republic of Azerbaijan.
