"Green corridor" for Iranian food exports to Russia opens in April - official

TEHRAN, March 2. /TASS/. "A green corridor" for Iranian foods will be opened in April, a senior official of the Russian Customs Service told TASS on Wednesday. "Here in Tehran, we have completed and initialed three principal documents," said Vladimir Malinin, the service’s deputy head, after his talks with Iran’s Customs Administration President Masoud Karbaisan. "The first agreement deals with the ‘green corridor’ as it is," Malinin said. "The second is an agreement on exchanges of information on the customs costs of the goods that cross the border. And besides, we are renovating the basic agreement on collaboration and mutual assistance in the customs clearance of goods adopted in 1998." "The green corridor" will help ease certain formalities in customs clearances and filing of the documents," he said. "But for putting the mechanism on the track, the exporter needs to notify the customs service in advance that the cargo is going to cross the border and present detailed information on customs costs of the goods," he said. "These are principal things without which the ‘green corridor’ will not be effective," the official said adding that was the key issue agreed during the talks. "In other words, the speed at which goods cross the border are behind the notion of a ‘green corridor’," Malinin said. "And first of all, it matters with perishable goods. And that’s why our Iranian partners asked us since the main flows from Iran will consist of vegetables and fruit in the foreseeable future." "We expect that in April all the three agreements will be inked by heads of the two countries’ customs services and then new customs regulations will come into effect for Iranian exporters," he said in conclusion. Read more