President of Iran Chamber of Commerce Gholam-Hossein Shafei on Tuesday underlined the need for ECO member states to further rely on the potentials of each other and move towards joint investment.
Shafei made the remarks during a meeting in Tehran with President of ECO Science Foundation (ECOSF) Komail Tayebi.
Also speaking during the meeting, Tayebi said that as an inter-governmental scientific institute, the ECO Science Foundation aims to link the scientific sectors of the member countries with their economic sectors.
“We can use other models on this route like that of ASEAN,” he said.
The ECO Science Foundation is pursuing skill training plans and has had good cooperation with China and Pakistan in this regard, Tayebi said, adding that the foundation also needs the help of Iran Chamber of Commerce.
In the meantime, the Iran Chamber of Commerce president said that Iran’s biggest economic problem today is scientific poverty in economy.
He said that the history of cooperation among ECO member states is so much disappointing.
The amount of inter-group exchanges between the ECO members does not go beyond 10% of their total trade while the number of agreements is much high, Shafei said.
He noted that ECO member states have to identify the potentials of each other and take steps to bring the existing agreements into practice.