Selahvarzi made the remarks in a meeting in Tehran with Tajikistan’s Ambassador to Iran Nizamuddin Zohidi where they discussed ways for enhancement of bilateral cooperation.
Speaking in the meeting, the Tajik ambassador said that the volume of trade between Iran and Tajikistan has grown five-fold so that it reached $239 million in 2022.
The ambassador added that Iran and Tajikistan eye a $500 million trade target for future exchanges.
Referring to an upcoming visit to Tajikistan by Iranian President Ebrahim Raeisi, he said that his country plans to hold an Iran-Tajikistan business forum simultaneous with President Raeisi’s Dushanbe visit.
Zohidi said that as much as 100 Tajik businesspeople will attend the business forum, expressing hope that Iran Chamber of Commerce will also help the dispatch of the same number of Iranian businesspersons to the event.
In the meantime, the president of Iran Chamber of Commerce said that the volume of trade between Iran and Tajikistan is not satisfactory yet, noting that the current bilateral exchanges are equivalent to those of ten years ago.
Selahvarzi touched upon President Raeisi’s upcoming visit to Tajikistan and said that Iran Chamber of Commerce is making efforts in line with the government measures to further expand ties with the Central Asian country.
He welcomed Tajikistan’s plans for holding a joint business forum with Iran, adding that the business forum can be a beginning of a new round of close cooperation between businesspeople of the two countries.