Growth of Iranian exports to India in the past few years was around 70 per cent and Iran ranks fourth in terms of diversity of agricultural products and seventh in terms of tourist attractions in the world, a senior Iranian official has said.

Amir Talebi, the Director General of Trade Promotion Organization (TPO), said Iran is India’s second largest crude supplier and India is Iran’s third largest market.

Talibi said another sector for investment and trade with Iran is the auto industry, the largest in the Middle East.

There are 11 ports in Iran with some 128 million tons of cargo transiting every year and many free trade zones with can help boost Iran-India cooperation.

India’s Ambassador to Iran Sanjay Singh said while addressing a seminar titled ‘India-Iran Trade and Investment’, “Our meeting today is in augmentation to the 16th Iran-India Joint Commission meeting in July in Delhi”.

The event which was jointly organised by the Embassy of India in Tehran and Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) on Thursday saw businessmen and officials from both the countries attending to promote their countries potentials in technology, investment and trade.

Mineral reserve is another asset for Iran which boasts 195,000 mines presently and producing some 230 million tons of mineral products per year.

Iran can also offer a wide variety of technical and engineering services including power lines, plants, electronics industry, information technology, construction of dams, tunnels and bridges, with the main export partners in the Middle East and CIS countries.