Reducing cost of cargo transportation, transit between Iran, Azerbaijan to boost trade - official

By Trend

The reducing costs of cargo transportation and transit between Iran and Azerbaijan will result in the development of trade, Director General of the Transit and International Affairs Department of Iran Road Maintenance and Transportation Organization (RMTO) Javad Hedayati told Trend.

The director general stressed that currently, one of the obstacles to cargo transportation and transit between Iran and Azerbaijan is high costs.

Hedayati ti also added that one of the obstacles to the development of trade between Iran and Azerbaijan is the complexity of duties and the small number of permit forms.

"Duties between the two countries amount to reciprocally several million dollars for each side. However, it has a great negative impact on trade and transit between the two countries. But if these duties are reduced, trade and transit relations can further develop," he said.

The Iranian official noted that transport is one of the main infrastructures for the development of trade relations - unless economically reliable and secure infrastructure is provided and cheap cargo transportation is available, no country's trade will be able to grow at the required level.

According to Hedayati, the value of trade turnover between Iran and Azerbaijan for 10 months amounted to $340 million. However, given the existing potential of both countries, the figure is very low.

"One of the reasons for the low figure is the obstacles in the transport sector. Azerbaijan and Iran can increase cooperation in 2-3 areas in the transport sector. One area is passenger transportation. As a result of the coronavirus pandemic, of course, passenger transportation has decreased. At present, this is being dealt with through vaccination. The other mentioned areas are trade and transit," he said.