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The volume of trade between Iran and
Qatar currently stands at $115 million, said Valiollah Afkhami-Rad, the
director of the trade Promotion Organization of Iran. In a meeting with a
Qatari trade delegation, Afkhami-Rad emphasized the need t give a boost to the
bilateral trade.

The two countries have a lot of
potentials which should be taken advantage of to increase the volume of
bilateral trade, he added.

Commenting on the need to resolve
the problem of transferring money to Qatar, he said that eight banks that are
not under the international sanctions are operating in Iran. So, we can
transfer money via these banks.

The director of the trade Promotion
Organization of Iran stated that the mentioned banks are both state-run and
privately-owned. “If Qatar is prepared, we are ready to do money transfer
operations via these banks.”

Despite the international sanctions
against the Iranian banking system in recent years, we are witnessing a growth
in exports of goods to other countries, so that the country has exported over
$25 billion worth of goods and imported the same amount in the first five
months of the current Iranian calendar year, which began on March 21, he
explained.

Afkhami-Rad, who is also the deputy
minister of industry, mining, and trade, emphasized the need to identify and
resolve obstacles in order to expand the bilateral relations as soon as
possible. Since the presidential election in Iran last year, the situation in
Iran has become changed, so that relations between Iran and different countries
in the world have improved. Numerous trade delegations from European and Asian
countries have visited Iran since then, he added.

Regarding the establishment of a
shipping line between Iran and Qatar, he said that the shipping line will be
established in the near future provided that Qatar is agreed. We are prepared
to lay the foundation to establish the shipping line, he concluded.