Armenian President: Iran-EAEU cooperation necessary
EghtesadOnline: Armenia’s President Serzh Sargsyan described Iran’s cooperation with Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) necessary for mutual ties between Tehran-Yerevan and beneficial to the expansion goals of the regional body.
The Armenia’s president in the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council said that the soaring trend of business exchanges between the country and the other EAEU members is going on, IRNA reported.
Pointing to the importance of the EAEU's cooperation expansion with non-member countries, Sargsyan added that the cooperation with Iran, China, India, Egypt and some other countries were discussed in 2016.
He said that Armenia is interested in implementing agreements, especially with Iran, which shares friendly, helpful and satisfactory mutual ties.
The Eurasian Economic Comission’s head Tigran Sargsyan also reported he cooperation plan between the Union and some countries, including Iran, China, Singapore and Egypt.
Russia’s Frist Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov said: signing the agreement of establishing free trade zone between Iran and EAEU is in the final phase of examining it by member states.
Earlier, Armenian’s Deputy Prime Minister Vache Gabrielian had called for the implementation of the economic cooperation plan between Islamic Republic of Iran and EAEU, the agreement of which has been verified, as a necessary step and stressed his country’s readiness for continuing talks on the plan.
He said that Armenia can play the role of guide in the talks between Iran and EAEU.
Russia, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Belarus and Kirgizstan Prime Ministers approved the plan of agreement with Iran to establish free trade zone on March 6. The agreement involves numerous economic opportunities, including trade and investment, and is considered as the prelude to more cooperation.
Eurasian Economic Union with 2.2 trillion US dollars GDP and 1.3 trillion US dollar industrial production officially started its operation with five members; Russia, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Belarus and Kyrgyzstan, in 2015. Foreign trade of the member-countries with non-members is at 877 billion US dollars which is 3.7 percent of the overall global exports. The figure for the Union imports stands at 2.3 percent of the total global rate.