Iraq Mulling to Import Medicine from Iran

A senior Iranian health official announced that Iraq is planning to import quality medicines from Iran.
“The Iranian and Iraqi health ministries have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on export of Iran’s pharmaceutical products to Iraq,” Head of Iran’s Food and Drug Organization Rasoul Dinarvand said on Sunday.

He noted that a team of medical experts have also visited Iraq and discussed ways to facilitate export of medicine to that country.

Dinarvand noted that the Iranian and Iraqi medical experts in their meeting reviewed different topics, including setting up a special committee in Iraq to study and register Iranian medicines as well as issuing GMP, FSC, CPP and CTD certificates for the medicines.

Last month, a senior trade official announced that Tehran and Baghdad have considerably increased the volume of their trade exchanges in recent years.

“The value of trade exchanges between Iran and Iraq has reached $12 billion now,” Head of Iran-Iraq Joint Chamber of Commerce Yahya Al-e Eshaq said, addressing a conference titled ‘Iran-Iraq Special Economic and Trade Opportunities’ in Tehran.

Al-e Eshaq noted that Iran is pursuing to have a 25-percent share in Iraq’s market.

Iran and Iraq have enjoyed growing ties ever since the overthrow of the former Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein, during the 2003 US invasion of the Muslim country.

In December, Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Ali Shamkhani in a meeting with Iraqi Transportation Minister Baqir Jabr al-Zubeidi underlined that further development of economic cooperation sets a priority for the two Muslim neighboring states.

“Development of economic cooperation is the most important common priority in the relations between Tehran and Baghdad,” Shamkhani said during the meeting in Tehran.

He underscored the necessity for the expansion of mutual cooperation in infrastructural fields, road, rail, sea and air transportation and in the reconstruction of the ruins left by the terrorist attacks in Iraq.

Zubeidi, for his part, stressed the new Iraqi government’s strategy for widening ties with neighbors, and said, “Given Iran and Iraq’s extensive borders and the two sides’ age-old and strong relations, we are interested in Iran’s all-out cooperation and partnership in our road-construction and rail transportation projects.”