By NNN-FNA,
Tehran : Iranian and Bahraini businessmen are slated to discuss investment opportunities in their fifth joint meeting in Manama on Saturday, despite heavy pressures by the US on the Arab state to end financial ties with Tehran.
Setting up companies in the fields of shipping, airline and medicine are expected to top the agenda of talks between the two sides.
Iran’s economic attaché in Bahrain Mostafa Sadat told the Islamic republic news agency that the five-day meeting between the two countries aims to create investment opportunities.
“Trade exchange between Iran and Bahrain has increased from $20 million to $170 in a decade. There are more than 20 weekly flights between Tehran, Shiraz, Mashhad and Manama,” said Sadat.
Iranian businessmen and officials from Iran’s Chamber of Commerce from all around the country will meet to decide on boosting commercial ties with the Kingdom.
Sadat said talks on setting up joint companies in the field of food and industrial sector will also be raised by the delegates.
The delegation will be headed by Yahya Eshaqi, chairman of the Tehran Chamber of Commerce, Industries and Mines. Eshaqi said the delegates will discuss the prospects of setting up a joint Iran- Bahrain bank and opening a five-star hotel in the Iranian city of Mashhad.
Bahrain MP Jassim Hussain, a member of parliament’s finance and economic committee told Reuters that the US has laid heavy pressures on the Persian Gulf Arab states, including Bahrain, to sever economic and financial ties with Iran, adding that Manama cannot ignore its lofty trading with Tehran.
“There has been a lot of pressure on Bahrain by the US. Iran is a major trading partner with the UAE [United Arab Emirates] and Bahrain and it has a lot to offer like food, energy, tourism.”
The US is at loggerheads with Iran over the independent and home-grown nature of Tehran’s nuclear technology, which gives the Islamic Republic the potential to turn into a world power and a role model for other third-world countries.
Washington has laid much pressure on Iran to make it give up the most sensitive and advanced part of the technology, which is uranium enrichment, a process used for producing nuclear fuel for power plants.