NEW DELHI -- A joint business meet of India and Iran was organized here Friday by the Federation of Indian Export Organizations (FIEO) to help expand business opportunities between the two countries.

According to IRNA reporter, India's Shipping Minister, Ved Prakash Goyal, in his inaugural address to the meeting said that "Iran is emerging as a major transit country between South and Southeast Asia and Commonwealth of Independent Countries (CIS) and East Europe".

"Most of the countries in former USSR are land-locked and Iran is the most important transit point for trade from India and Southeast Asian countries to this region," he added.

Outlining the importance of International North-South transit corridor, Goyal said that it would be a big boon to the trade at large in the member countries namely, the Russian Federation, Iran and India.

"The transit route through Iran is feasible both from the commercial and logistics point of view," the minister said, adding "Iran has well-developed transport infrastructure in the form of roads, railways and ports".

"Roads link the Persian Gulf ports not only with the rest of the country and the Iranian ports on the Caspian Sea but also the neighboring states. Adequate warehousing and trans-shipment facilities exit at the Iranian ports," he added.

Referring to India and Iran cooperation in the shipping area, Goyal said the two countries are cooperating in this area for 25 years in the form of a joint venture, namely, Irano-Hindi Shipping Company which is based in Tehran.

"There is thus a tremendous potential for not only augmenting the existing export-import trade of major commodities but also adding other products and commodities to the trade," Goyal said.

The head of the 70-member Iranian delegation, Fereidoun Entezari, said that the transit corridor to link India to CIS via Iran would increase bilateral marketing of goods in a way that their containers would not return empty.

The need is to identify goods, including hardware and software, he said, adding the Iranian Shipping Company, as the biggest marine transport fleet in the region, has 120 ships. Subhash Mittal, vice president of FIEO, which represent more than 100,000 small, medium and large firms in India, also said, "We Indian businessmen feel happy at the prospects of oil and gas from Iran to be transported to India through a pipeline."

"We are confident that sooner or later this energy link between India and Iran will become a reality and give an enormous boost to our economies," he added.