Iran has said that it respects its trade relationship with India and considers it a very fast growing economy. The chief of Iran’s Chamber of Commerce, Industries and Mines Saturday said the Indian economy provides a good opportunity for Iran to cooperate and interact with the country.
On the sidelines of a meeting with a visiting 80-member Indian business delegation, Mohammad Nahavandian told the IRNA news agency that Tehran was ready to start cooperation with New Delhi as India’s economy was now experiencing a 10 percent growth.
India is a country with ample opportunities with which Iran seeks to expand ties, he said.
Nahavandian said the current trade, banking and insurance cooperation between the two countries should be further broadened.
The Indian delegation arrived in Iran Friday for a five-day visit, according to Xinhua.
At a meeting with a group of Iranian businessmen and experts in Tehran Saturday, Arvind Mehta, the joint secretary in India’s ministry of commerce and industry, said the value of India-Iran transactions will hit $25 billion in the next four years.
Mehta put the current level of bilateral transactions at around $15 billion.
Iran sells oil to India worth some $13 billion annually and imports about $2.5 billion worth of goods from India.
Mehta said the visit by the Indian delegation will play an important role in enhancing ties.
Xinhua said that by refusing to join the West-sponsored sanctions against Iran over its controversial nuclear programme, India has found it an opportunity to increase its exports to the country in the absence of Iran’s former economic partners.
Iran has agreed to receive over 40 percent of its revenue from its oil exports to India in rupees.
The UN Security Council and Western countries have imposed a series of economic sanctions on Iran over the nuclear programme.
Most of Iranian financial institutions have been barred from directly accessing the US and the European Union financial systems.
The US has been rallying its allies in imposing similar sanction pressures on Iran’s financial system over the nuclear programme, which Tehran describes as solely for “peaceful” use of nuclear energy. The US and its Western allies suspect it as an attempt to acquire nuclear weapons.