TEHRAN: A delegation of 300 Italian traders and businessmen will travel to Iran in the near future, the Iranian deputy minister of industry, mining, and trade, Hossein Esfahbodi, said.
The delegation aims to explore new investment opportunities in Iran once sanctions against the country are lifted, the Mehr news agency quoted Esfahbodi as saying on Monday.
“Foreign countries have a significant presence in Iran’s trade fairs. However, there are certain countries which are waiting for an imminent nuclear agreement in order to return to the Iranian market,” he added.
In this line, Germany has been negotiating over the past weeks to dispatch a high-ranking trade delegation to Iran, he noted.
Italy took the lead among Iran’s European trading partners in the previous Iranian calendar year, which ended on March 20, said Valiollah Afkhami-Rad, the director of the Trade Promotion Organization of Iran.
Italy was the 9th leading importer of Iranian non-oil goods in the previous Iranian calendar year, which ended on March 20, 2015, according to the Iran Customs Administration.
Iran exported $618.419 million of non-oil goods to Italy and imported $1.059 billion of non-oil goods from the country, accounting for 1.5 percent of Iran’s total non-oil trade.
That was while Italy was the 19th leading importer of Iranian non-oil goods in Iranian calendar year 1392 (March 2013-March 2014).
On May 17, Iran and Italy signed a bilateral trade insurance agreement which is expected to help facilitate commercial transactions between the two countries.
The agreement was signed between the Export Guarantee Fund of Iran (EGFI) and Italy’s Servizi Assicurativi del Commercio Estero (SACE).
It is expected to provide insurance coverage for traders of the two countries over their mutual import and export plans.
