Kazakhstan ready to boost agricultural trade with Iran

Kazakhstan and Iran can boost agricultural trade to US$1 billion. The countries have all opportunities for this. Today, Kazakh Prime Minister Alikhan Smailov and Iranian Minister of Agriculture discussed the prospects for enhancing cooperation in the agro-industrial complex. Seyyed Javad Sadati Nejad announced Iran’s readiness to expand the supply of citrus products to the Kazakh market and highlighted the importance of developing the railway and maritime infrastructure. The parties emphasized that the transport and logistics sector is one of the key areas of the partnership. In this context, the North-South Transport Corridor is of particular significance. The roadmap will make it possible to increase its throughput capacity to 10 million tonnes by 2025.

“Iran is Kazakhstan’s important trade partner in the Persian Gulf region. In the January-November 2022 period, trade turnover between the countries increased by more than 20 percent to nearly US$500 million. In addition, Kazakhstan is ready to supply the Iranian market with 75 additional commodity items worth about US$250 million in order to further increase the volume of mutual trade,” Smailov said.

It bears noting that Kazakhstan also considers Iran as a trade hub, which will allow increasing the volume of exports of domestic products to the states of Africa and the Middle East. The expected amount is US$600 million. In addition, the parties intend to bring the total volume of mutual trade up to US$3 billion in the future.