India ready, serious to expand ties with Iran

India's Deputy Minister of Commerce and Industry Sobramaniam said that his country is fully ready and serious to broaden trade and investment relations with Iran, Mehr News reports.

Sobramaniam made the remarks in a meeting with the Iranian ambassador to India Ali Chegini.

In the meeting, the Indian official recalled the thousands of years of long history of cultural and civilizational interactions between Iran and India as bases for the closeness and brotherhood between the two nations.

Emphasizing that India is fully serious and ready to develop relations with Iran, he welcomed the taking into account of all opportunities for cooperation and the exploration of capacities to improve the level of cultural, economic, trade, scientific and technological relations between the two countries to develop trade and investment.

Ali Chegni, Iran's ambassador to New Delhi, for his part, talked of the process of trade relations between the two countries and said that the two nations can expand their cooperation in such fields as the supply of raw materials and industrial products and exchange of agricultural and food products, supply of pharmaceutical commodities, cooperation in other industries including cooperation between the knowledge-based companies.

He also stressed that the two economies of Iran and India are complementary rather than rivals to each other, noting that if all capacities are used, trade relations can enhance rapidly.