Kazakhstan and Iran signed a memorandum to increase the mutual supply of agro-industrial products during the Kazakh trade minister’s two-day working visit to Iran from October 31 to November 1, QazMonitor reports citing the press service of the Kazakh ministry of trade and integration.
Deputy Prime Minister - Minister of Trade and Integration of Kazakhstan Serik Zhumangarin headed the Kazakh delegation which included representatives of Kazakhstan's flour, grain, and meat unions, government agencies, the national railway company Kazakh Temirzholy, and food corporations.
Opportunities to enter new sales markets for Kazakh agricultural and industrial products and the elimination of barriers in the existing North-South route were the key topics of discussion.
During the meeting with Iranian Minister of Agriculture Seyyed Javad Sadatinejad, Zhumangarin announced Kazakhstan’s readiness to export wheat and barley, confectionery and flour products, meat, vegetable oils, and other products.
“We are interested in increasing the volume of mutual trade in agro-industrial products with Iran to $1 billion and supplying markets in Pakistan, India, Southeast Asia, and East Africa," he said.
Zhumangarin also voiced Kazakhstan’s interest in increasing the flow of goods from 1 million to 4 million tons per year during a meeting with the Iranian Minister of Transport and Urban Development Rostam Qasemi.
For this purpose, both sides agreed to adopt a trilateral road map for the removal of infrastructure bottlenecks and the development of the North-South route capacity for 2022-2025 by the end of 2022.
The parties agreed to work on the following steps to be included in the Roadmap:
- Creation of a special visa regime for truck drivers involved in international transportation and consideration of providing similar visa exemptions for business representatives
- optimization of customs clearance processes of the two countries, including the introduction of a unified tariff, a single transport document, and a unified information system
- launch of a pilot project for the transportation of cargo by land along the route "Kazakhstan - Turkmenistan - Iran" with the use of navigation seals, following the example of "Kyrgyzstan - Kazakhstan - Russia".
In order to improve the efficiency of logistics processes and bilateral trade, the parties also agreed to explore the possibility of creating a joint export-import company.
As a result of all the agreements reached during the discussion, the two sides secured signed a memorandum on cooperation in the development of trade, transport, and logistics.
