In a meeting between Head of Iran’s Ports and Maritime Organization (PMO) Ali-Akbar Safaei and Kazakh Ambassador to Tehran Askhat Orazbay on Monday, the two sides discussed ways of expanding maritime ties, including the establishment of a direct shipping line in Caspian Sea.

Speaking in this meeting, Safaei stressed the need for the development of logistics and maritime cooperation between the two countries and voiced PMO’s readiness for awarding maritime and port projects both in the north and south of the country to Kazakh contracting companies, the PMO portal reported.

Orazbay, for his part, pointed to a visit of Kazakhstan’s expert delegations to Iran to assess the facilities and equipment of Amirabad and Shahid Rajaei ports over the past year and said that the investment of Kazakh companies in Iran’s ports is under consideration.

Iran and Kazakhstan inked a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on the expansion of cooperation in the agriculture and trade fields as well as industries, logistics, transportation and technology transfer in Tehran last November.

The MOU was signed by Javad Sadati-Nejad, the Iranian agriculture minister, and Zhumangarin Serik, the deputy prime minister and minister of trade and integration of Kazakhstan, who visited Tehran on top of a Kazakh delegation.

As reported, the effort of the two countries in order to increase the value of bilateral trade to about one billion dollars, based on the agreements of the presidents of the two countries, is considered in the MOU.