Iran, Turkmenistan Plan Increasing Trade, Investment And Cooperation Ties

Bilateral Trade Grew By 84% in 2021

Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi discussed developing trade ties with his Turkmen counterpart Serdar Berdimuhamedow on Tuesday (May 3) and that he was sure that the process of expansion of ties between the two countries would be accelerated in Berdimuhamedow’s term of office.

The Turkmenistan President was appointed on March 19 this year, and succeeded his Father in the role. He has expressed a desire for continuing economic and foreign trade development as well as state reforms. The country has traditionally taken a neutral stance in regional and international affairs since the breakup of the USSR in 1992, which has to some extent left the country partially isolated.

Turkmenistan is strategically situated between China, Central Asia and access to European markets and has immense potential as a Eurasian transit hub. The Turkmenbashi port on the Caspian Sea provides access to the INSTC and markets in Iran as well as west to the Caucasus, Turkey and European Union, north-west to Russia, east to Afghanistan and Uzbekistan, and south via Iran to the Middle east, East Africa, India, Pakistan and South Asia.

President Raisi told his counterpart that his Father, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow’s measures during his term of office as president of Turkmenistan, interactions between Tehran and Ashgabat in various fields progressed well.

Berdimuhamedow, for his part, congratulated the President and the people of Iran on Eid al-Fitr and referred to the 30th anniversary of the establishment of relations between the two countries, adding that in recent years, ties between the two countries in all fields have been actively expanded and developed.

He said that Turkmenistan is interested to accelerate broadening ties with Iran and that activating the joint economic cooperation commission between the two countries would certainly help achieve this goal.

Current Iran-Turkmenistan trade stands at about US$1 billion having achieved 84% growth in 2021.

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