President calls for clever use of Caspian Sea

President Rouhani made the remarks simultaneous with the inauguration of some development projects on infrastructure, health, medical treatment, telecommunications, ports, industry and agriculture through video conference at Anzali Free Trade Economic Zone.

“Countries such as Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Russia and Azerbaijan are among our neighbors and we can broaden cooperation with them through the Caspian Sea and we all should take good advantage of the Sea,” he said.

”We have not used the Caspian Sea properly,” underlined President Rouhani, adding that we should take good advantage of this God-given blessing,' said the president who is visiting the northern province of Gilan on Thursday.

“We have ignored to install recreation facilities in the Caspian Sea to serve our people,” he said.

'Free trade zones in Iran are mostly dedicated to imports of goods, but this approach should be amended and we should help promote production, communications and tourism in these regions,' the president said.

'Some 20 million tons of goods are shipped annually from Indian sub-continent to Russia. If 5 to 10 million tons of it could be transited through Iran from Bandar Abbas to Moscow, then the transit way could be lessoned to half and this is an economic advanage for Iran.'

He expressed hope that construction of Rasht to Astara railroad with the assistance of Republic of Azerbaijan to start very soon and in the next visit of Azeri president to Iran, it could be finalized.

Transit routes connecting Iran, Russia, India and other countries will be very beneficial to all, the president said, adding that Gilan is a connecting province to join various parts of Iran to the northern countries leading to huge employment and economic activities.

During the recent visit to Russia, one of the agreements was about production of 6,000 cargo rail cars and it was agreed that 1,500 cars to be produced in Russia and the rest to be assembled in Iran which provides high employmen, said the president.

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