Mehdi Sanaei, on Tuesday, concurrent with the trip of President Hassan Rouhani to Armenia to attend the Eurasian Economic Union summit tweeted that Iran's presence in the Eurasian Economic Union is a major step towards expanding regional and commercial cooperation with its northern neighbors and achieving one of the main goals of macro policies.
According to him, the Free Trade Area Agreement between Iran and Eurasia was reached after three years of intensive negotiations with the Secretariat of the Union in Moscow.
The implementation of the Free Trade Agreement between Iran and Eurasia in October and reduction of tariffs on 500 items exported from Iran, if properly planned, will provide a historic opportunity to increase our exports to the six countries, Sanaei added.
The Eurasian Economic Union began its membership with Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus in 2015; it aims to ensure the free transit of goods, services, capital and labor between member-states.
Armenia and Kyrgyzstan joined the union shortly thereafter, and in 2016 Vietnam became the first trans-regional country to become a member.
More than 40 countries and international organizations, including China, Indonesia, the Zionist regime, as well as Latin American countries, have announced their readiness to work within the union.
The union has also been negotiating with South Korea, Egypt and India for membership, and Israel is seeking membership.
Hassan Rouhani, President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, left Tehran for Yerevan on Monday afternoon to attend the Eurasian Economic Union summit in Yerevan, which presence in the summit will have important political and economic implications.
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. The Eurasian member-states now have 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.
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