TEHRAN – Head of Iran’s Trade Promotion Organization (TPO) Hamid Zadboum was appointed as the chairman of Industry, Mining, and Trade Ministry’s “Foreign Trade Council” which has been established to promote non-oil trade, the portal of TPO reported on Saturday.

As reported, in a decree, Acting Industry, Mining and Trade Minister Hossein Modares Khiabani appointed Zadboum as the head of the “Foreign Trade Council” of the ministry’s affiliated organizations and bodies active in the field of non-oil exports.

Head of the foreign trade council is going to be in charge of coordination among the mentioned bodies including the Export Guarantee Fund of Iran, Export Development Bank, Iran International Exhibitions Company, Export and Import Regulation Office and National Carpet Center, in order to facilitate non-oil trade.

The mentioned council has been introduced by the Industry, Mining and Trade Ministry following a comprehensive fourfold program defined by the ministry in order to realize "Surge in Production”, "Completing semi-finished projects", "Export development and import control" and "Market management and regulation" in the current Iranian calendar year (started on March 20).

Holding joint meetings, integrated decision-making and implementation, using domestic potentials and knowledge, exchanging views, sharing facilities, optimal utilization of capacity and capability of responsible organizations and agencies, focusing on provinces especially export-oriented ones, tapping on the potentials of organizations and the chambers of commerce, cooperatives and guilds, in order to achieve the goals of non-oil exports, finding practical solutions for the problems and taking necessary action, and finally presenting regular reports on the progress of the programs, have been underlined as some of the main tasks of the mentioned council.

According to Zadboum, Iran is capable of doubling non-oil exports to its neighbors in two years.

Making the remarks in an interview conducted by IRIB on May 30, the official said that considering the future capacities, the TPO has planned increasing non-oil exports to the neighboring countries to about $100 billion in a two-year time span, in a way that Iran’s share of the regional markets will significantly go up.

The official has previously said: “Pakistan and Turkey have the highest capacity to import Iranian goods, which is good news for Iranian businessmen and exporters.”

Pointing to the Persian Gulf states as good markets for some Iranian-made commodities, Zadboum said that large markets such as Russia and China should also be considered by exporters.

Iran shares borders with fifteen countries, namely the United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Turkey, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Russia, Oman, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Kuwait, Qatar, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia whose total value of annual imports exceed $1000 billion.

Increasing non-oil exports to the neighboring countries is one of the major plans that the Iranian government is pursuing in the current Iranian calendar year.

EF/MA