Iran to Dispatch 20 Commercial Attachés to Target Markets

Head of Trade Promotion Organization (TPO) has said that the organization plans to send 20 commercial attachés to new target markets in the next Iranian calendar year 1400 (begins on March 21).
“We have considered the budget required for [dispatching] 20 commercial attachés to new target markets in our budget for [the year] 1400,” Hamid Zadboom said in an interview with local media.
Underlining the significant role of commercial attachés in accelerating trade with other countries, Zadboom said: “Commercial attachés are the business arms of our ambassadors in destination markets and the task of commercial attachés is to strengthen trade diplomacy.”

The official stressed the need for diversifying the country’s export basket in order to be able to diversify export destinations, noting: “naturally, the diversity of the export basket depends to a large extent on the production of diverse export products, so we must move in a direction that our products are tailored to the needs of target markets.” He further noted that despite the efforts for the expansion of the trade circle, Iran is currently more focused on boosting trade with the neighboring countries and some special trade partners like China and India.

Two years ago about 54% of our exports were made to 15 neighboring countries, and now the figure has increased to over 62% in the first eight months of the current Iranian calendar year (March 19-November 20, 2020), Zadboom said. “Our goal is to increase the figure to 70% by the end of the current year (March 20, 2021),” he said.

Following the government’s policies for increasing the country’s trade with the neighbors over the past few years, the TPO, as the foreign trade representative of the Industry, Mining, and Trade Ministry, has been trying to send new commercial attachés to target markets every year.

In early December, the Head of Iran Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture (ICCIMA) Gholam-Hossein Shafei had called on the government to choose the country’s commercial attachés from among the private sector representatives. - Tehran Times