Minews - Iran, Russia stress expanding trade, industry ties

The Islamic Republic of Iran and Russia have stressed the importance of expanding trade and industrial cooperation between the two countries.

(Minews) - In a meeting with Russia's Deputy Industry and Trade Minister Aleksey Rahmanov, Iran’s new envoy to Moscow, Mehdi Sanaei, said Iranian governmental and private sector firms are ready to cooperate with Russian companies on importing nd exporting industrial products.

Rahmanov, for his part, expressed hope that economic cooperation between the two countries would expand by using existing capacities.

The Russian official also expressed Moscow’s readiness to boost trade with Iran in the fields of heavy industries, metallurgy and refinery as well as gas and mining equipment.

During a meeting on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek in September, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin called for stronger trade ties between the two countries.

Describing the current level of bilateral trade transactions as insufficient, the two presidents decided to “add an impetus to bilateral economic relations and intensify the contacts,” Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

Iran and Russia signed two deals for boosting bilateral trade in February 2013 and since January 2012, Tehran and Moscow have been using the rial and the ruble in their trade exchanges, dropping the US dollar.