Turkey, Iran ink two key protocols to boost economic, trade ties

KONYA - Doğan News Agency

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Turkey and Iran signed a banking protocol and a Joint Economic Commission protocol in a bid to improve economic and trade ties in the Central Anatolian province of Konya on April 9. 

The deals were signed by Turkish Development Minister Cevdet Yılmaz and Iranian Telecommunications and Information Technologies Minister Mahmoud Vaezi. 

Yılmaz said the two countries were complementing each other and their boosted economic ties would make a contribution to the region’s prosperity. 

“We made some great progress and would like to add to it in the next period. We will continue to make trading easier by adding more products to the protocol we sign today,” he said.      

Turkey and Iran regularly update their trade agreement with the signing of a fresh protocol to add new products to the items exchanged between the neighbors. In the first stage, some 15 products from each side have been added to the preferential trade items. 

Last month’s exports to Iran showed a 0.3 percentage point increase.      

Yılmaz noted some one-third of the trade between the two countries was made on local currencies last year. 

“We have decided to act together to increase this share in the future. We have also decided to surge the capacity of electricity energy exchange from 450 megawatts [MW] to 700 MW and then 1,300 MW,” he said.