A meeting was held between the Iranian Minister of Agriculture, Seyyed Javad Sadati Nejad, and the visiting Advisor to Prime Minister of Pakistan for Commerce and Investment Abdul Razak Dawood in Tehran on Sunday.
The Iranian minister of agriculture referred to the historical relations between Iran and Pakistan, saying that the two countries share many commonalities in terms of borders, religion, culture, and ethnic groups.
These commonalities can bring better trade conditions to the two countries, he added.
Sadati Nejad said that Iran and Pakistan can use any opportunity to complement each other.
According to him, Iran enjoys the potentiality to export dates and apples to Pakistan and in return, it can import sesame and rice from its South-Eastern neighbor.
Elsewhere in his remarks, Sadati Nejad pointed to the problems resulting from the anti-Iran sanctions that put hurdles on the way of Iran's trade with neighbors.
Iran and Pakistan must use local currency in order to solve the problems caused by the sanctions, the Iranian minister said.
The agriculture minister also said that using a barter trade system with neighbors to circumvent the sanctions is one of the top policies of the new Iranian administration.
Abdul Razak Dawood, for his part, said that any improvement in trade and economic cooperation with Iran is very important, adding that the Iran-Pakistan trade volume should be expanded, especially in the field of agriculture.
Iran and Pakistan play an important role in linking the regional countries of Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan, the Pakistani official added.
Referring to the two countries' potentialities, he said "Pakistan has rice and Iran has oil and petrochemicals, which we can exchange these goods."
"We are aware of the conditions of sanctions against Iran and we are looking for a mechanism to establish an effective and useful relationship with Iran, so we are proposing the barter system," said the senior adviser to the Pakistani prime minister for trade and investment.
Dawood added, "We have the possibility of exporting products such as quinoa, mango and citrus to Iran and we hope that the existing problems for trade relations will be resolved in the wake of relations with Iran."