Tehran, Iran— A free trade zone agreement between Iran and the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) will be signed before the end of the year, according to Russia’s deputy Prime Minister Alexey Overchuk.
“Now, indeed, the EAEU has come very close to concluding such an agreement with Iran. This issue was touched upon, including at the Eurasian Intergovernmental Council and received the support of the heads of government. Therefore, we are making progress. The agreement can be signed,” the Russian Deputy Prime Minister said in an interview with TASS on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF).
According to him, the EAEU is developing a number of FTA agreements with several more states, with which negotiations are also underway.
“[We are in talks with] Egypt, India, Indonesia, and the UAE. All these countries are friendly to us, they are growing markets, so respectively the economic center of the new multipolar world is moving in their direction,” Overchuk said.
He drew attention to the fact that even in a bilateral format, negotiations on free trade zones are “very difficult, and they take years.”
“Negotiators need to take into account a lot of different interests. In our case, the interests of all five EAEU member states, their businesses and consumers are involved here. All this should be taken into account by our negotiators. This is a complex process,” the deputy chairman of the Russian government concluded.
Member-states of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) are Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.
Last year, Iran and the Eurasian Economic Union finalized the terms for a free trade agreement involving more than 7,500 types of commodities, according to the head of the Iranian delegation negotiating with the Eurasian bloc.
“Over the past two years, we have held around 30 rounds of negotiations with representatives of the Eurasian side — some face to face and others online. At the end, we agreed on a 150-page deal, which is the most comprehensive trade agreement [Iran has had],” Mirhadi Seyyedi was also quoted as saying by Tasnim News Agency.
Noting that the agreement has the widest range of commodity coverage in terms of duties, he said officials from the Trade Promotion Organization of Iran and the Eurasian side will soon announce the end of talks by signing a memorandum in Tehran.
Iran and the Eurasian Economic Union had signed a three-year provisional agreement in Astana, Kazakhstan, on May 17, 2018, for the bloc to welcome Iran into EEU. The arrangement, which has lowered or abolished customs duties, is the first step toward implementing free trade between Iran and the five members of the union.
According to Seyyedi, Iran’s trade with EEU is mostly focused on agricultural products.
“Our imports mostly constitute cereals and oilseeds. In return, Iran exports apple, vegetable and greenhouse crops at zero tariffs,” he said.
He noted that EEU has agreed to include about 95% of its traded goods in the agreement.
“That includes almost all the types of goods exchanged between the two sides, except for those we are reluctant to import, such as agricultural machinery or dairy products,” he added.
The official said that since the preferential trade deal in 2018, bilateral trade has doubled between Iran and EEU from $2.5 billion to $5 billion a year.
“Never before have we had an agreement as inclusive as this [the prospective free trade deal with EEU]. Clearly, when the provisional agreement is upgraded to a free trade treaty, out foreign trade will get a considerable boost,” he said.