Iran in talks with EAEU on FTA

The talks started on Monday with the presence of a Eurasian delegation comprised of representatives of the union’s member states and the Eurasian Economic Commission, as well as Trade Promotion Organization Head Alireza Peymanpak and representatives of Iranian ministries and agencies, IRNA reported.

The negotiations on turning the preferential trade agreement into a free trade agreement began about 18 months ago and are expected to conclude before the end of the current year.

The purpose of the negotiations is to determine the commodity items that should be included in the agreement.

If the FTA is implemented, 80 percent of the goods traded between the two sides will be exchanged with zero tariffs.

This round of negotiations will finish today; both sides hope to finalize the draft of the agreement and prepare the list of commodity items for signing.

TPO sent a team of negotiators to Russia in April to hold talks with representatives of the five Eurasian Economic Union member states on the free trade agreement.

Iran exported 2.77 million tons of commodities worth over $1.17 billion to the union to register a 3.5 percent increase in terms of weight and 12 percent growth in terms of value.

Iran and EAEU reached a preferential trade agreement in 2018 based on which about 862 commodity items are currently subject to preferential tariffs.

The agreement, which came into effect on October 27, 2019, will be in effect for three years, so it is going to expire in October this year.

The EAEU, launched in 2015, is a regional bloc consisting of Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Belarus and Armenia, which seeks to optimize the flow of goods and services among its members.