According to Total News, quoted by the Iran Online Chamber, the specialized conference “Turkey’s Trade Polaroid” was attended by the Director of the West Asia Office of the Trade Development Organization, the Trade Counselor of the Turkish Embassy in Tehran, the Head and Members of the Iran-Turkey Joint Chamber, the Head of the Educational and Research Institute of the Iran Chamber and a group of economic activists related to Turkey were held in the Iran Chamber.
In this meeting, Mehrdad Saadat, the Head of the Iran-Turkey Joint Chamber, proposed the transfer of Iran’s trade with Turkey to the private sector and said, “The government cannot be a good businessman.” But the real private sector has come to work and can operate with the support of the government.
Pointing out that Iran could not realize its 15 billion dollar capacity from Turkey’s 500 billion dollar trade volume last year, he continued, although our exports to Turkey are growing, they are not satisfactory. While we do not need marketing to realize this 15 billion dollars, and this share is related to our advantageous goods. Therefore, this potential should be operationalized by trusting the private sector. 85% of Turkey’s economy is in the hands of the private sector and they are more inclined to interact with the private sector of Iran, but this possibility is less available for the private sector to participate in Iran.
He emphasized, preferential trade between Iran and Turkey should be completed as soon as possible and the joint economic commission of the two countries should be held after a long break.
Further, Farzad Piltan, Director General of the West Asia Office of the Trade Development Organization, emphasized that Iran and Turkey can be very suitable business partners for each other and continued, in terms of exports, we can aim for greater growth with Turkey because the infrastructure is almost ready. In terms of imports, Turkey can play a special role in meeting the needs of the country. In the field of transit, there is good cooperation between the two countries, and Iran and Turkey are good crossings for exporting each other’s goods to third countries.
According to him, technical and engineering services, re-export and joint production can be other very good fields of cooperation between Iran and Turkey.
Referring to the preferential trade agreement between Iran and Turkey, he said, this agreement covers 400 to 500 goods between the two countries. But some of these goods have been subject to sanctions and therefore we need to conduct more negotiations for the effectiveness of this agreement.
Piltan considered receiving duties from some Iranian goods beyond the international custom or creating restrictions on the transit of Iranian goods and creating monopolies for some Iranian companies in the Turkish market as among the obstacles in the development of relations between the two countries and said, we are trying to solve these issues through a conversation.
He emphasized, we set a target of at least 15 billion dollars in trade with Turkey by 2025, which is supposed to happen with the help of the private sector.
Boland Orhan, the Senior Commercial Adviser of the Turkish Embassy in Tehran, also continued in this meeting by saying that Turkey’s neighborhood with Europe gives Turkey special advantages, trade barriers and problems are more related to processes and procedures and additional costs than customs tariffs that imposed on merchants. The public sector should facilitate the business process for businessmen by using new technologies and avoiding complex and traditional measures.
Emphasizing the element of transparency in business, he said, all the laws and fees that affect business should be transparent and their documents should be available for businessmen. The more prominent the role of chambers of commerce and joint chambers and export associations in trade, it can increase transparency.
Faraz Chamani, the Head of the Turkey group in the West Asia office of the Trade Development Organization, referring to the necessity of correcting the obstacles in Iran-Turkey trade negotiations, said, we increased the level of trade between Iran and Turkey from 1.5 billion dollars to 22 billion dollars in 2012, but after that, nothing good happened. Although the prospect of 30 billion dollars in the volume of exchanges between the two countries was set and the preferential trade agreement was signed, all these lost their function.
Stating that both countries created obstacles in the way of trade with each other, he added, although the trade volume of the two countries reached 13 billion dollars in 2021, the problem related to the figure which is not absorbed in the market of the two countries. This means that the trade balance is not positive for either Iran or Turkey, and the two countries only transit their goods through each other. This business is not transparent and clear and optimistic.
According to him, the development of the preferential trade agreement, the updating of the border trade agreement between the two countries, the development and modernization of the border markets according to the 2012 agreement, and the solution of all the commercial problems of the two countries, and the development of relations in the form of a comprehensive agreement on joint commercial cooperation between Iran and Turkey, including measures Trade Development Organization is to increase business cooperation between Iran and Turkey.