According to Development of International Business (DNI), local exports to Iran have reached historic peaks since 2007, climbing to more than one billion dollars in the past two years.
“It is a significant export increase of more than 1,100 percent over the past six years. Trade with Iran has turned the Asian continent to the second destination of the Argentine products even more than the European continent,” Marcelo Elizondo, director of the department of international business at DNI, told Press TV correspondent.
“Argentina is clearly looking to emerging countries for growing market. Besides Argentina’s economic model is based on agricultural products. Last year, it exported 81 billion dollars, 55 percent of them were agricultural exports and Iran demands agricultural products. And a third reason is that over the past years the two countries seem to have overcome the political differences that neutralize bilateral trade,” Elizondo added.
Israel and its Western allies have nervously watched growing economic and political relations between Iran and Argentina but Buenos Aires has responded to the criticism.
Argentina’s Foreign Minister Hector Timerman has said that the upturn in trade ties is a response to “the sovereign decision of the government of Iran” to import Argentine products.
This comes as President Cristina Fernandez also defended an agreement with Iran to establish a “truth commission” to investigate the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires.
Under intense political pressure imposed by the US and Israel, Argentina formally accused Iran of having carried out the 1994 bombing attack on the AMIA building that killed 85 people. AMIA stands for the Asociacion Mutual Israelita Argentina or the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association.
The Islamic Republic has categorically denied any involvement in the terrorist bombing.
