In an interview with Radio Goftogoo, the Iranian MP and member of the Parliament National Security Commission, spoke about lack of economic diplomacy in the government's Foreign Ministry and stressed on the necessity of strengthening ...
In an interview with Radio Goftogoo, the Iranian MP and member of the Parliament National Security Commission, spoke about lack of economic diplomacy in the government's Foreign Ministry and stressed on the necessity of strengthening this sector in the 13th government.
In a live phone call interview with "Rouydad" program, Zohreh Elahiyan talked about the current structure of Iran Ministry of Foreign Affairs and its functionality; “Today, our diplomatic apparatus should seriously follow the economy; we are under the most severe sanctions and part of the country's production capacity remained stagnant.”
She called attending the economic diplomacy the best way to export our products; “This important structure wasn’t taken seriously in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and it is even possible that this structure has not been upgraded to our country’s needs.”
She continued; “Neighboring countries with a population of hundreds of millions should be the target of our economic diplomacy. Therefore, we require kind of jihadi management to govern our country's economic diplomacy in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to pave the way for exporting our products to neighboring countries.”
She pointed that these goods range from simple to high-tech products and stated; “Unfortunately this has not happened. Especially in countries with which we have good interactions.”
Elahiyan, who was recently sent by the Iranian Parliament to monitor the Syrian elections, emphasized the need for Iran to pay attention to Syria’s markets; “We couldn’t find even a single Iranian-made product, whatsoever, in this country's markets.”
She mentioned that this is an indicator of flaws in Iran's economic diplomacy, adding; “Similar problem is observed in Afghanistan, Iraq, Turkey and our northern neighbors.”
Elahiyan also noted that Asian countries are potentially of a very good capacity for us to export our products; “(Besides), Africa with 57 countries can be the largest export market for Iranian goods.”
The Iranian MP criticized lack of trade and trade advisors from Iran in these countries; “We should have trade advisors in important countries to facilitate the way for exports; those who recognize the situation in these countries and can make connections with Iranian producers.”
In her remarks, Elahiyan cited that the resumption of this trade procedure is one of the main ways to remove obstacles to domestic production; “Given our country's foreign exchange needs, the problem of dollar revenue generation and multilateral monetary agreements related to other countries will be thus removed.”
By Azadeh Khajeh Nasiri
