Iran's non-oil exports to Azerbaijan exceeded $500 million in the last Iranian year (ended March 20) showing an increase compared with the year before, a trade official said.

"The volume of exported goods from Iran to Azerbaijan in the last year hit $548mln in the last Iranian year," Iranian Commercial Attaché in Baku Seyed Faraj Shahidi said on Friday.

Shahidi noted that Iran's non-oil exports to Azerbaijan showed an 8.54 percent rise in terms of value as compared with the previous year.

Last month, Iranian Envoy to Azerbaijan Mohsen Pakayeen underlined that Tehran and Baku have great potentials which should be used for increasing their mutual cooperation.

Pakayeen said the ties between Iran and Azerbaijan can turn into a strategic relationship, and stressed that the mutual cooperation between the two neighboring countries are moving in the right direction.

He noted that Tehran and Baku can adopt a positive attitude about their relations in the new Iranian year due to their geographical, historical and cultural proximities, and added that Iran and Azerbaijan have high potentials for trade cooperation and transit of goods.

"I believe that Iran and the Republic of Azerbaijan have very effective potentials for familiarizing with such potentials which can result in convergence between the two countries and turn the two countries into strategic partners," Pakayeen said.

Iran has recently enhanced efforts to boost political, economic and cultural ties and cooperation with the regional and neighboring countries, specially the Central Asian states.

In October, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad traveled to Baku to attend the 12th Summit of the Economic Cooperation Organization. The summit was held at the Heydar Aliyev Center in Baku.

The Iranian and Azeri presidents met on the sidelines of ECO Summit.

Speaking to reporters at the end of his visit to Baku, President Ahmadinejad called the ECO summit in Azerbaijan as "very good and constructive."

He also expressed the hope that ECO would witness very positive outcomes during Azerbaijan's presidency.
 

News ID 184633