Iran, Italy reach positive trade balance

TEHRAN, Feb. 09 (MNA) – President of Iran-Italy Chamber of Commerce and Industry has said Italy is the only European country with which Iran has a positive trade balance. Ahad Pourfallah maintained that the volume of trade between the two countries currently stood at 1.2 billion dollars, 800 million of which were related to Iran’s exports and the remaining 400 million dollars to Italy’s. According to him, Italians are good costumers for Iran’s textile and shoe industries; “until recently, the country’s economic policies were based on oil export but now with the drop in oil prices we should give a more thorough consideration to developing tourism,” he said. Pourfallah deemed the role of business advisors in foreign countries highly effective and said, “in the last four years the Iran-Italy joint chamber of commerce has made great endeavors so that the chamber would be allowed to select its own business affiliates; this has yet to happen but what we did accomplish was that the affiliates would now be briefed before being sent off to foreign countries.” He also noted that Iran was trying to make a more prominent appearance at Milan Expo due to take place in June 2015.