In 2015, bilateral trade shrank 30%, totaling $1.67 billion. In the previous year, before the toughening of sanctions, it reached $2.37 billion, the Brazilian newspaper Folha reported.
Brazilian exports were 98.5% of the total trading.
“I think we can, in the short term, in a five-year horizon, triple current trade with Iran,” said Armando Monteiro, Brazil’s Minister of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade.
Monteiro was the head of a mission with 33 companies and Brazilian organizations that visited Iran in October.
The first meeting of a joint committee on economic themes-being regathered-is expected to be held in March or April, in Brasilia, with government representatives from both countries.
The Brazilian government would also be considering an investment facilitation agreement with Iran, similar to the ones signed last year with Mexico, Colombia, Chile, Angola and Mozambique.
The Brazilian government and exporters expect that the political proximity the country has kept with Tehran in recent years will be a differential in the race for Iranian consumers, Financial Tribune reported.
“Politically, in recent years, Brazil has not been hostile to Iran. And that will possibly revert in Brazil’s exports to that country,” said Jose Augusto de Castro, head of the Brazilian Foreign Trade Association.
According to Rodrigo Azeredo, director of the Trade and Investment Promotion Department of the Foreign Ministry, the message was clear during the trade mission that visited Iran in October.
“Brazil is very competitive in several segments and they have with Brazil a relationship of trust and friendship,” he said.