​Iranian Industry, Mining, and Trade Minister Meets Venezuelan Vice PresidentIran Says Ties with Venezuela ExcellentWith the aim of boosting trade ties between Iran and Venezuela, a meeting was held between Iranian Industry, Mining, and Trade Minister Mohammad Reza Ne’matzadeh and the Venezuelan vice president. The chairman of the Trade Promotion Organization of Iran, the director of Iran’s National Development Fund and the Venezuelan oil and economy minister were also present in the meeting.Ne’matzadeh referred to relations between Iran and Venezuela as excellent. He expressed the hope that the bilateral ties would expand ever more. “We are planning to remove obstacles and deal with effects of sanctions to expand cooperation with Venezuela,” he added.The vice president of Venezuela, for his part, said that the late Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez paid a special attention to the expansion of economic relations with Iran. The Venezuelan government is bound to keep the excellent ties with Iran as it had in the past, he added.The two sides emphasized the need to boost cooperation as the members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). They also expressed their points of view about facilitating exports of Iranian goods to Venezuela, imports of minerals, and exports of medicine.At the end of the meeting, the two sides agreed that an economic and trade delegation to be dispatched in the future to the country for finalizing the agreements and boosting bilateral relations.