Iran should not exclude Europe from its trade; Official

Speaking to ILNA news agency, Pourfallah said that Iran should have interactions with the world based on the win-win approach and elimination of Europe from trade equation means losing part of opportunities.

He added that Europa has laid foundation of many industries in Iran and countries like UK, France, Italy and even Spain have created many valuable infrastructures in Iran in industries like home appliances, steel, tile, ceramic, apparel and textile.

He added therefore elimination of Europe will cause us to lose many opportunities and many units which need spare parts and renovation will be deprived of them.

Pourfallah went on to say that agreement in Vienna talks will be very good news for the national economy, expressing hope it would happen. He said that economic activists believe the country should have interactions with the world based on the win-win approach and dividing the world into friends and foes will have its negative impacts on the economic sectors.

He noted that Iran missed many opportunities after the 2015 JCPOA deal because the country was not well prepared and many industries faced damages and failed to upgrade their technologies. He said therefore the country fell behind in terms of quality because many production lines are European style and European experts had already installed the production lines and trained Iranian technicians.

He expressed hope this time the country would welcome the JCPOA agreement well prepared, adding that Iran-Italy Joint Chamber of Commerce has invited thousands of enterprises. He said that Italians were the first who arrived in Tehran after the 2015 JCPOA and sent their political officials to Tehran.

Pourfallah went on to say that Italian foreign trade minister visited Tehran in a six-month span after the JCPOA deal but the talks did not end in good results but trade was never halted and only minimized. He reiterated most of European countries could not cooperate with Iran and other countries cannot replace them but there is huge difference in the level of their technologies.

He stated that Europeans can improve the production line of Iranian industries and restoring ties with them will lead to improving the quality of products.

Pourfallah reiterated that Iran should not focus on imports from Europe as the country has the chance for absorbing investment and exports. He stated that many European countries since the past have been interested in investment in Iran and even many projects were signed but reimposition of the sanctions cancelled almost all of them.

He said among Europeans, Italians are still keen to cooperate with Iran, expressing hope that the cooperation between the two states would return to their heyday record.

He said Iran used to buy its crude oil from Iran because all of their refineries had been set based on using Iran’s oil and turning to other oil suppliers like Algeria and Libya cost them dear.

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