DUBAI -- Hundreds of Iranian expatriate traders residing the United Arab Emirates (UAE) gathered at the Iranian club here on Sunday evening to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Iran-UAE ties and discussed economic and social relations between the two countries.

The ceremony was arranged by Iran's Ambassador to Abu Dhabi Alireza Salari with the objective of establishing closer ties among expatriate businessmen. The gathering was attended by some officials from Iran's consulate in Dubai and a number of Iranian institutions.

Diplomatic relations between the Islamic Republic of Iran and UAE were established in early summer 30 years ago with the opening of consulate offices of the two states, IRNA reported.

Addressing the ceremony, Salari said that Iran-UAE ties have been developing in all fields, specially over the past year and a number of officials from both countries have visited Abu Dhabi and Tehran.

Referring to the repeated visits of Iran's vice president to UAE and that of UAE Foreign Minister, Sheikh Hamdan bin Zayed to Tehran, he described Iran-UAE ties under current regional conditions as exceptional.

Also in the gathering, some of the difficulties encountered by the Iranian expatriates with respect to employment and training as well as investment in domestic projects were discussed by a number of traders.

Lack of harmony between the syllabus of Iranian schools with the schools overseas, specially in the field of teaching foreign languages and computer sciences as well as the discordance of the administration of such schools with the international norms, the unemployment of the children of the Iranian expatriates and their being hired by Iranian manufacturing companies and traders were among the issues discussed at the meeting, and long-term and short-term solutions were proposed.

Iran-UAE relations and trade exchanges were also brought up in the meeting and the adjustment of the trade balance of the two countries were also among the issued discussed.

Iran is considered as one of UAE's major trading partners and according to the latest figures, the bilateral trade exchange has recently reached $3.13 billion.

According to the statistics, some $2.72 billion of the said amount is related to Iran's imports from the UAE, while $408 million worth of goods were exported from Iran to the UAE.