The Iran Trade Center was opened during a ceremony attended by Armenian Economy Minister Gevorg Papoyan and Iranian Minister of Industry, Mine and Trade Mohammad Atabak. The 18,000-square-meter retail and whole facility will consist of over 100 sections selling mostly Iranian-made consumer goods, chemicals and other industrial products. It is a joint venture set up by Iran’s ParsHilal Caspian Group and the Multi Group of Gagik Tsarukian, an Armenian businessman and politician.
“The largest Iranian trade center in the world has been opened in Armenia,” the Iranian ambassador in Yerevan, Mehdi Sobhani, said during the opening ceremony.
“Trade between Iran and Armenia has grown by leaps and bounds, and I am sure that thanks to this center, greater impetus will be given to the development of commercial relations between the two countries,” he said. “The leaders of Armenia and Iran have planned to increase the volume of trade to $3 billion, and we must make efforts to make that a reality.”
According to Armenian government data, bilateral trade stood at $693 million last year and $323 in the first half of this year. It remains quite lopsided, with Iranian exports to Armenia account for more than 80 percent of these figures.
“We have committed ourselves to first bringing that [annual] figure to $1 billion in the near future and, as Mr. Ambassador pointe out, $3 billion later on,” Papoyan said for his part.
Armenian-Iranian commercial ties are expected to receive a major boost from the energy sector in the years ahead. Armenia plans to significantly increase the presently modest imports of Iranian natural gas after completing the protracted construction of a new power transmission line through which it will export more electricity to Iran.
This will cement warm political ties between the two nations. Their geopolitical importance for Iran was underscored recently by Tehran’s angry reaction to Russia’s renewed push for the opening of a land corridor that would connect Azerbaijan to its Nakhichevan exclave through Syunik, the only Armenian region bordering the Islamic Republic. Iranian leaders fear that such a corridor would undermine Armenia’s territorial integrity and eventually strip Iran of its common border and direct transport links with its sole Christian neighbor.