(Tehran Times) – Iran was Turkmenistan’s first trading partner in 2010, accounting for 21.7% of its total trade value, Turkmenistan State Statistical Committee reported.

Russia, Turkey and China ranked the next with 18%, 16.4% and 10.8% shares respectively, the report added. Turkmenistan’s trade amounted to $14 billion in the first six months of 2011, showing 40% rise compared to the same period last year.

The trade value between Iran and Turkmenistan is expected to reach $5 billion by the end of the current Iranian calendar year (March 20, 2012), the director of Europe and America bureau of the Trade Promotion Organization of Iran said. “Tehran and Ashgabat have great potentials to enhance their bilateral trade value up to $10 billion,” A. Asadian added. The two countries’ annual trade value currently stands at $4.2 billion.

The head of the Turkmen Chamber of Commerce and Industry Palvan Taganov also said that Iran is a major trade partner for his country. According to him, currently 146 Iranian companies are carrying out several industrial and constructional projects in Turkmenistan.

Turkmenistan and the $167 million Dousti (“Friendship” in Persian) Dam in the south of the country were built through a joint venture. Balkanabad-Aliabad power transfer line and several other projects such as the program of fiber-optic communications development, construction of bunkers and other objects in Merve and a refinery in Turkmenbashi, construction of liquefied gas terminals, highways are instances of growing bilateral relations. In 2009 about 100 industrial projects have been built or are being built in Turkmenistan with Iranian help.

One of the major joint projects between Iran and Turkmenistan is the construction of a 1,000-km railroad which goes from Kyrgyzstan to Hormuz strait and will shorten more than 600 km the route for transporting goods from the Central Asia to the Persian Gulf, and will become one of the important international transportation links between China and Europe.