Iran Press/ Iran News: The BRICS group comprises Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. The countries account for more than 40% of the global population and nearly a quarter of the world's gross domestic product.
Iran, which holds the world’s second-largest gas reserves, has applied to join the BRICS group of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa that Beijing and Moscow cast as a powerful emerging market alternative to the West.
Speaking in his weekly presser, in response to the question of Iran Press about Iran's cooperation with the BRICS group Ehsan Khandouzi said: "The neighborhood policy and economic diplomacy that the government has undertaken with regional and mainly Asian countries are on the same track. We are trying to increase the share of neighboring countries in trade with Iran by visiting business groups, long-term investment and commercial contracts, and facilitating currency and banking exchanges."
Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, originally an informal group of the leading emerging economies of the early 2000s, have since experienced very different growth paths. "Good efforts have been made in the financial and banking spheres. Currently, two of the most reliable Eurasian banks are cooperating with Iranian banks in monetary and financial exchanges, and several other banks are negotiating."
"In the negotiations we are conducting with Eurasia, the customs tariff rate is supposed to be zero on 80 or 90 percent of the goods," he said, adding, "The free trade agreement with the European Union is also going well, and I hope that the negotiations, which were prolonged, will be completed by March 20, 2023, so that the government will send the agreement to the parliament."
Regarding the latest cooperation between China and Qatar in energy and its impact on the 25-year agreement between Iran and China, he also said: "China and Qatar's cooperation in energy and LNG will not affect the Chinese contracts with other countries. China is one of the biggest energy customers in the world and still imports a part of its energy needs from Iran."
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"Today, we have twenty billion dollars in trade with China, and we hope to increase it in the coming year of 2023," he underscored. The 25-year understanding between Iran and China is not only limited to cooperation in the field of energy, but energy is also a part of the agreement, and other parts of it are related to non-energy, which the Chinese insist should be finalized as soon as possible, the spokesman highlighted.
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In response to the question that the strategy of the current Iranian government in the 25-year agreement with China is different from the Rouhani government, he said: "The first vice president is in charge of the 25-year deal between Iran and China. Announcing the possibility of changing Iran's ambassador to China in the coming days, the spokesman added Tehran and Beijing believe that the current level of cooperation is not satisfactory and that relations should be increased."
"In the 16 operational agreements that took place during the visit of the Deputy Prime Minister of China to Tehran, we had four very important axes; joint investment projects, energy supply, port and transit cooperation, currency and banking interactions," he highlighted. The spokesman also called the situation in the capital market promising and said: "Although the nature of the currency market is to be volatile, the current conditions are good."
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