Iran Press/ Iran news: According to Lal Mohammad Baloch Zehi, goods such as bananas, mangoes, textiles, rice, etc., will be imported from Pakistan, and goods such as apples, dates, petrochemical products, tiles, and ceramics will be exported in return.
Referring to the resumption of the operations of the Islamabad-Tehran-Istanbul train, he added: "Plans are planned to speed up the transfer of goods through the route."
Reza Seyed Aghazadeh, Director General of the Asia-Pacific Office of the Trade Development Organization of Iran, had earlier told ILNA: "I hope Pakistan would be able to prepare the legal preparations to implement the process more quickly."
Pakistan was Iran's eighth-largest trade partner in 2008–09, before the intensification of the United Nations and US sanctions on Tehran over its nuclear program. But the bilateral trade of some 1.3B USD at the time could not withstand the negative impact of the sanctions. In reversing this trajectory, Pakistan is now optimistic that the new barter mechanism will solve enough obstacles to increase annual trade with Iran to roughly 5B USD by 2023.
Announcing that all Pakistani companies will be accommodated, Iranian Industry, Mining, and Trade Minister Reza Fatemi Amin stated on Nov. 6: "With the measures taken, the existing barriers will be removed within the next three months and the trade processes will be facilitated. Hopefully, the Pakistani government will provide Iranian companies with the same facilities."
The Barter Trade Mechanism will work in the following ways: (i) the barter trade shall be done via land route through legal customs notified border crossing points between the two countries; (ii) there will be no monetary transaction under the barter trade arrangement. Pakistani importers will pay Pakistani exporters in lieu of goods and services exported by them in Pak Rupees, and the same mechanism will apply on the Iranian side; (iii) on imports/exports of goods by either side, the party will submit documentary evidence such as Good Declaration to the focal persons in Quetta Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and counterpart Chambers viz. Zahedan Chamber of Commerce and Industry; (iv) to meet the objective of the barter trade mechanism, both parties must finalize an international mechanism to remove difficulties in barter trade.
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