Iran, Uzbekistan eye 10-fold rise in trade with PTA deal

Iran and Uzbekistan have reached initial agreements to engage in preferential trade to increase their bilateral exchanges by 10 times.

A senior official at Iran’s Trade Promotion Organization (TPO) said on Tuesday that the agreements had been reached during a visit by Uzbekistan’s minister of trade Laziz Kudratov to Tehran last week.

Akbar Godari, who leads TPO’s office for Central Asia trade, said that the signing of a preferential trade agreement (PTA) would allow Iran and Uzbekistan to increase their trade to $5 billion per year from a current value of just $0.5 billion.

He said that the two countries have agreed on reducing trade tariffs on certain goods and products exported from Iran, including on train wagons, electricity generation turbines, steel and petrochemical products.

Iran has been working to increase the volume of its trade with regional and allied countries amid sanctions that restrict its access to Western markets.

The country has already signed PTA deals with a Russia-led bloc of Eurasian economies, known as the EAEU, and countries like Pakistan and Indonesia.

However, Tehran seeks easier access to markets in Central Asia where landlocked countries in the region are trying to benefit from trade taking place on emerging east-west and north-south transport corridors.

Iranian government figures show there has been a major increase in cargo transit via Iran to and from Turkmenistan, which is the gateway to trade with Central Asia.

Uzbekistan is the most populous country in Central Asia. The country enjoys close cultural and historical affinities with Iran, making it easier for Iranian businesses to engage in trade with partners in the country.

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