YEREVAN, JANUARY 31, ARMENPRESS: The Armenian-Iraqi relations have a great potential for development, notwithstanding the fact that the indicator of the bilateral trade turnover is quite modest at present – a bit more than $50 million. Iraq is the largest consumer of the Armenian tobacco and the import indicator from Iraq to Armenia is provided by the oil products.

In November 2013 the delegation headed by the Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq Rosh Nouri Shaways visited Armenia. Armenpress had a talk with the Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia Armen Gevorgyan on the economic agreements reached during the visit and the plans for 2014.

- Mr. Deputy Prime Minister, what kind of economic agreements were reached for 2014 in the framework of the visit of your Iraqi counterpart to Armenia?  

- During the visit of the delegation headed by the Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq Rosh Nouri Shaways in November 2013, the second session of the Armenian-Iraqi intergovernmental commission  was held (the first one was held in November 2012 in Iraq).

With the results of the first session of the Armenian-Iraqi intergovernmental commission, agreements on investment promotion were signed. With the results of the second session we signed agreements on economic, commercial, scientific and technical cooperation. The reached agreements include all the fields of the economy, a part of which is intended to be implemented in 2014 and the forthcoming years.

In 2014 agricultural cooperation agreement will be presented for signing, which is currently in the stage of discussion. This field is one of the most important directions of the bilateral relations. There is an interest also towards the cooperation in the sectors of tourism, health care and energy. Armenia exports to Iraq mainly agricultural products, food, juices and tobacco.

 - What steps are intended to make to increase the volumes of the Armenia-Iraq trade turnover in 2014? 

 - It is worth mentioning that within a year the volumes of the trade turnover between the two countries have been increased twice though the indicators are still low.

The necessary steps are made to strengthen and deepen the cooperation between the Armenian and Iraqi businessmen, among them are the creation of favorable land and air communication conditions, as well as works are being carried out to facilitate the entry visa issuance process.

To increase the volumes of the exported goods form Armenia, at the session of the Armenian-Iraqi intergovernmental commission we organized also an exhibition “Exported Armenian goods”, during which agreements were signed and an Armenian-Iraqi business forum was held.

- What do you think, what prospects does the import of oil products from Iraq to Armenia have?

- Today we have some volumes of import of oil products from Iraq to Armenia and they tend to increase. At the same time during the business contacts we hold discussions. Taking into account the logistic peculiarities and difficulties, the possible options of cooperation development are studied.