Pakistan’s Commerce Minister Due in Iran to Discuss FTA
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Pakistan's Commerce Minister Khurram Dastgir Khan is scheduled to pay an official visit to Tehran in late December to start formal talks on a bilateral free trade agreement (FTA) between the two countries.
Heading a business delegation, Dastgir Khan will visit the Iranian capital on December 28-29 at the official invitation of Iran's Minister of Industry, Mines, and Trade Mohammad Reza Nematzadeh, Business Recorder reported on Wednesday.
During his stay here, the Pakistani minister will explore ways to finalize the initial draft of the bilateral free trade agreement signed between the two countries when President Hassan Rouhani traveled to Islamabad in March.
The agreement, also known as “Strategic Action Plan”, aims to raise Tehran-Islamabad’s trade to $5 billion in the next five years.
A preferential trade agreement (PTA) has been in force between the two neighbors since September 2006 but financial transactions have not surpassed $1.3 billion which they recorded in 2012 when US-led sanctions on Iran brought them down to $432 million.
A free trade agreement envisages transactions in goods, services and investments. To achieve that, they have to tackle a number of hurdles first, including non-tariff barriers and infrastructure bottlenecks.