Helsinki supports Iran’s membership in World Trade Organization (WTO), Finnish Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Lenita Toivakka said on Wednesday.

She made the remarks in a meeting with Iranian Minister of Industry, Mines and Trade Mohammad Reza Nematzadeh on the sidelines of WTO’s Tenth Ministerial Conference in Nairobi on Tuesday.

Toivakka called the recent visit to Iran by a Finnish delegation as positive, adding that cooperation between Iranian and Finnish private sectors can boost two countries’ economies.

The official welcomed Iran’s readiness to join the WTO, adding that Helsinki supports the multilateral trading system.

Nematzadeh and Toivakka stressed enhancement of banking and financial cooperation between the two countries to facilitate economic cooperation.

WTO members were urged at the opening session of the WTO’s Tenth Ministerial Conference in Nairobi on 15 December to crown a successful year of multilateral diplomacy by delivering on a package of trade deals that would benefit the world’s poorest and spur global economic growth.

Kenya is hosting the first WTO ministerial conference on African soil. The meeting comes more than 20 years after the conclusion of the Marrakesh Agreement in Morocco which led to the creation of the WTO in January 1995.