Islamabad
Iranian ambassador Mehdi Honardoost and Minister of State for Finance and Economic Affairs, Rana Muhammad Afzal Khan, Friday, expressed satisfaction over the ongoing Free Trade Agreement (FTA) negotiations.
As a result of signing of MOU on Five Year Strategic Trade Cooperation Plan between the two countries in March 2016, Pakistan and Iran started negotiating a Free Trade Agreement, in December 2016 with the resolve to timely complete the negotiation process and achieve the objective of enhancing bilateral trade for the betterment of people of both brotherly countries removing all barriers to bilateral trade.
The Third Meeting of the Trade Negotiation Committee (TNC) on Pakistan-Iran Free Trade Area Agreement (PIFTA) was held in November 2017 in Tehran. Both the countries finalized the text of FTA after two days negotiations between the officials and technical experts.
Both parties reviewed the status of the negotiations held so far and the progress made in order to proceed further on all decisions taken earlier by the TNC particularly during the second TNC meeting in Islamabad. Various ways and means were discussed to expedite the issues at hand.
Both parties reviewed the recent trade statistics of bilateral trade and reaffirmed the necessity of formal exchange of trade statistics by their customs authorities regularly in the format which has already been determined.
Ambassador Honardoost and Minister Afzal Khan held a meeting here and agreed on enhancement of bilateral trade between the two brotherly Muslim countries.
Keen interest was evinced in the Banking Sector and both sides expressed their desire to enhance cooperation in it. Besides, commonality of viewpoints was found on various national and international issues and it was affirmed that both sides will cooperate in all sectors.
https://pakobserver.net/pakistan-iran-agree-enhance-bilateral-trade-2/