Iran and Turkey plan to add new categories of goods to their preferential trade agreement in December this year, according to Iranian non-governmental newspaper the Financial Tribune. The preferential trade agreement between Iran and Turkey was first signed in January 2014 and took effect a year later. The agreement aims to boost bilateral trade.
The Financial Tribune stated that the two sides have 265 categories of goods under their existing preferential trade agreement. Turkey has requested to add new product categories to the agreement, including vehicle spare parts, electric and mechanical machinery and equipment, iron and cast iron products and steel products, while Iran plans to add new categories, including petrochemical products, ferromolybdenum and other iron alloys, direct reduced iron, pellets, cold rolled coil and steel bars.
Meanwhile, in October this year, the two countries also signed an agreement for conducting bilateral trade in local currencies. According to the Financial Tribune, the agreement will considerably reduce the costs for both Turkish and Iranian traders, as they will no longer need to use intermediate currencies since the specified agent banks are allowed to finance bilateral trading via international payment tools such as letters of credit and remittances in their local currency.