BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

22/04/2006

Belarus, Iran Sign Economic Contracts

Belarus and Iran signed a number of trade and economic agreements following a meeting of the Belarussian-Iranian cooperation commission in Minsk on Friday.

"There are no dual-purpose goods in the agreement, we are developing trade and economic and scientific areas," Belarussian Industry Minister Anatoly Rusetsky was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying.

The deals concern the activity of the Iranian company Keyson in the Minsk free economic zone and an agreement between the Belarussian research and production association Integral and the Iranian company Pooyandegan Rah CAADAT on cooperation in producing medical hardware.

"We also agreed on more intensive cooperation in the banking sphere and on stepping up the assembly of Belarussian trucks MAZ in Iran and Iranian Samand cars in Belarus," Rusetsky said.

Iranian Commerce Minister Masud Mir-Kazemi emphasized that trade and economic cooperation between Iran and Belarus is exclusively civilian and that Iran is interested in increasing imports from Belarus.

The parties "did not discuss cooperation in nuclear technology," Mir-Kazemi said.

Source:

http://en.chinabroadcast.cn/706/2006/04/22/191@80242.htm