The supervisor of Gilan Customs Administration Abolghasem Yousefinejad said that 24 percent of the weight and 37 percent of the total value of exports to Eurasian countries are through the customs of Gilan province, adding that Anzali Customs share of these exports is 26 percent by weight and 36 percent in dollar value.
Referring to the importance of Astara Customs, he noted that most customs procedures of the sea, rail, and land are carried out in this way and Astara Customs is a complete custom that requires more investment.
He reiterated that the export trend in Gilan Customs has been increasing in 2019 and the largest volume of exports has been done from Astara.
In 2016, Iran proposed to the Eurasian Economic Commission the creation of a free trade zone between Iran and the Union; a proposal that was welcomed by its members, and during two years of numerous negotiations and quantitative and qualitative evaluation of items and amount of preferential tariffs, the agreement was finally signed on May 17, 2018, in Astana, Kazakhstan.
The Eurasian Economic Union's initial formation agreement was signed on May 29, 2014, between Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan, replacing the Eurasian Customs Union, and then Armenia and Kyrgyzstan joined afterward.
The union officially began its work on January 1, 2015. Eurasian member-states now has an area of 20 million square kilometers and a population of more than 183 million, accounting for 2.5 percent of the world's population. On the day of implementation of the agreement, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that "today we have created a powerful and attractive economic growth center"; a regional market that connects more than 180 million people.
The objectives of this economic union can be facilitated by trade, the creation of a common market in the CIS, the gradual elimination of customs rules within the Union, the establishment of a common foreign tariff among member-states, and the harmonization of customs formalities.
Joining the union has many economic advantages for Iran, including tariff discounts for Iranian exporters to the Eurasian Economic Union. Also, since the Eurasian Union increased its share of national currency trade payments by 70 percent by reducing the use of the dollar, there can be optimism on reducing the use of the dollar in trade, which is promising in the current sanctions situation for Iranian businessmen.
In recent years, Iran's accession to the Eurasian Customs Economic Agreement helped develop the province's trade and production, imported goods into the province's foreign trade commodity basket so that achieving the $600 million target by the end of this year will be achieved in the export, import, revenue, unloading and loading sectors.
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