Indian traders facing infrastructure issues will be resolved soon, assures Iranian Foreign Minister

New Delhi, June 10 (KNN) Addressing an event on Thursday in Mumbai, the Foreign Affairs Minister of Iran H E Dr Hossien Amir-Abdollahian told the Indian Exim Community that Iran will be providing all necessary infrastructural facilities one such effort on the infrastructural front is the Port of Chabahar.

The Iranian minister said that they would like to address the challenges and bottlenecks faced by the trade community in India with regards to Iran.

He was speaking at an interactive session organised by Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) in association with UCO Bank, which was also attended by some senior level dignitaries from Iran and about 200 exporters.

Appreciating the presence of women entrepreneurs, the minister said that women entrepreneurs are more successful trade facilitators.

He informed that during the meeting and interaction with the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and the National Security Advisor, he discussed upon development of sustainable ties between two nations and concluded with certain strong and positive agreements.

Earlier welcoming the Chief Guest and Exim Community, Nandkishor Kagliwal, Regional Chairman, FIEO (WR) said, “There is a strong need of international political negotiations wherein sanctions on Iran may either be relaxed to some extent or an explicit interpretation of narrow exemption on Chabahar port may be rolled out by US. This will strengthen the movement of cargo through the INSTC route. An attempt should be made to explore traditional mechanisms of trade like barter trade, so as to defeat the implication of sanctions.”

During the keynote address, Dr A Sakthivel, President, FIEO said, “Both countries are looking for a Preferential Trade Agreement, with a focus on diversifying the bilateral trade basket to include manufacturing, services and light engineering items. The PTA will allow the two countries to cut tariffs on each other’s products.”

India & Iran are active players in the INSTC corridor which has assumed greater importance in view of war between Russia and Ukraine. There is a need to bring Chabahar also under the INSTC so as to forge partnership with Afghanistan and Central Asian countries besides using the important route of Bandar Abbas, he added.

An informative interactive session on banking issues, sanctions and other shortcomings for the trade were discussed and responded to by the Iranian officials.  (KNN Bureau)