Prague, Tehran launch Joint Trade Commission

TEHRAN, Jan. 31 (MNA) – The first Joint Trade Commission (JTC) between Iran and Czech Republic kicked off on Monday in Prague with 130 economic activists of the two sides in attendance. The JCT is attended by Chairman of Tehran chamber of commerce industries Mines and agriculture (TCCIMA) Masoud Khansari, Minister of Industry and Trade of the Czech Republic Jan Mladek, Head of Confederation of Industry of the Czech Republic Jaroslav Hanák, President of Czech Chamber of Commerce Vladimír Dlouhý as well as over 100 economic activists of the European country. Iran’s 30-strong economic delegation is headed by TCCIMA Head Khansari. In addition to commerce sessions, members of the Iranian group will attend B2B meetings with their Czech counterparts while Khansari will meet and talk with Czech’s Jaroslav Hanák and Vladimír Dlouhý. Czech Republic holds a population of about 10.6 million people with a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of around 182 billion dollars. Moreover, the GDP growth rate of the European state reached 3.9 percent in 2015. Czech Republic, for instance, had conducted negotiations with Iran’s economic activists over the past three years and intends to reinvigorate trade relations with Iranian traders. Efforts by officials of the two countries brought about 52 million dollars of trade turnover between the two sides in 2015 indicating a 50% rise as compared to the earlier year. What’s more, volume of trade turnover between Iran and Czech experienced a 25% growth in the first 11 months of 2016 and climbed to 59.139 million dollars while the figure for the corresponding period in the previous year stood at 47.433 million dollars. The volume of economic exchanged between Czech Republic and Iran's neighbors in 2015 were three billion and 180 million dollars with Turkey, about one billion and 176 million dollars with Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan about 685 million dollars, about 897 million dollars with Emirates and Saudi Arabia about 620 million dollars. Later, the Iranian delegation is slated to travel to Denmark in order to participate in economic sessions, hold bilateral meetings and visit industrial complexes of the European country.