Iran’s trade with ECO members confounds sanctions: Iranian finance minister

TEHRAN,Jan.15(MNA) – Trade between Iran and other member states of the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) has been remarkable over the past two years, despite the international sanctions imposed on the country, Iranian Finance and Economic Affairs Minister Shamseddin Hosseini stated. During the first eight months of the current Iranian calendar year (March 20-November 20, 2012), Iran exported over $5 billion worth of non-oil goods to ECO member states and imported about $4 billion worth of non-oil goods from those countries, IRNA quoted Hosseini as saying. He made the remarks during the first meeting of tax affairs directors of ECO member states, which was held in Tehran on Monday. In September 2011, ECO Secretary General Muhammad Yahya Maroofi said that the organization’s member states plan to set up a common market. The 10-member organization’s share in global trade is around $684 billion annually, Maroofi added. “Under the agreement reached by ECO members, the common trade market should be established by 2015,” he said. ECO is an intergovernmental regional organization established in 1985 by Iran, Pakistan, and Turkey with the aim of promoting economic, technical, and cultural cooperation among member states. The organization was expanded in 1992, with seven new members, namely Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, joining. At the beginning of 2012, the United States and the European Union imposed new sanctions on Iran’s oil and financial sectors with the goal of preventing other countries from purchasing Iranian oil and conducting transactions with the Central Bank of Iran. U.S. sanctions entered into force on June 28, 2012, while EU bans on Iranian oil imports came into force on July 1, 2012.