TEHRAN - Iran’s consul general to the Pakistani city of Quetta has announced the Islamic Republic’s readiness to boost bilateral customs cooperation and to set up joint border markets, IRNA reported.

Hassan Darvish-Vand made the announcement on Saturday during a visit to Pakistan’s Gwadar Port in Balochistan Province, where he met with local officials.

His trip took place several days ahead of the inauguration of a project that would transfer electricity from Iran to Gwadar Port. The project will be inaugurated in the presence of Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.

The Iranian diplomat, during his talks with Gwadar’s officials, said that Iran and Pakistan have numerous capacities to develop relations including in the trade sector.

Transport, joint border markets, and customs issues were among the topics discussed during the meeting.

Back in June 2022, Pakistan’s Federal Minister for Energy Khurram Dastgir Khan visited Tehran and held a meeting with his Iranian counterpart Ali-Akbari Mehrabian to discuss the implementation of a project to export Iranian electricity to Pakistan’s port city of Gwadar.

The project had been agreed upon during an earlier meeting between Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and his Pakistani counterpart Bilawal Bhutto.

according to a mutual agreement, Pakistan is to purchase 100 Megawatts (MW) of electricity from Iran to fulfill Gwadar’s power needs.

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