TEHRAN - Head of Iran’s Trade Promotion Organization (TPO) Hamid Zadboum said the country’s foreign trade is expected to improve in the second quarter of the current Iranian calendar year (June 21-September 21), TPO portal reported.

“Given that more borders were closed in the first three months of the year, and now the number of closed borders has decreased, the situation is expected to improve. We have already seen some growth in Tir [the fourth Iranian calendar month June 21-July 21] compared to the first quarter; in other words, in recent weeks, our situation has become better,” Hamid Zadboum told Donyaye Eghtesad newspaper.

Of course, since this pandemic has impacted all the countries around the world, it is not possible to make an accurate prediction of the state of future trade; because the conditions depend on the containment of the coronavirus, the flow of goods and services, as well as the travel of passengers between countries. But in any case, if we follow the current path, we will not see much negative impact on our foreign trade, he explained.

Mentioning the situation of Iran’s borders with neighbors, Zadboum said the border crossings with the neighboring countries are being opened one by one as the corona-related restrictions ease in the region.

Currently, our land border with Turkmenistan and two or three border crossings with Iraq are still closed, he noted.

He further said that land and rail borders with Turkey are open and the borders with Afghanistan, Azerbaijan and Armenia are also active, but in the case of Turkmenistan only the rail border is open and the land border has not yet been reopened. It is also possible to trade with Kazakhstan and Russia by sea.

EF/MA