Kyiv-Tehran: a new economic era

Kyiv-Tehran, the first flight of an Iranian airline Mahan Air, was inaugurated at the international airport Boryspil.

“This is the first airline to have entered the Ukrainian marked and opened a new international flight in several years. Buying a Mahan Air ticket will get you the travel visa as soon as possible, literally in a few hours,” said Mohammad Beheshti Monfared, Ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Iran to Ukraine, during the celebrations.

“Initially, we plan to cover the passenger traffic between Ukraine and Iran with three flights a week. In the future we are going to organize transit flights to East Asia through Tehran,” said Mehdi Aliyari, managing director of Mahan Air.

He stressed that Ukrainians will be served in the business hall of the Tehran airport, no matter what class they fly. The flights will be three hours long, on the planes owned by Mahan Air and its Ukrainian partner Um Air. The planes will mostly be Airbus-310 (carrying up to 200-220 passengers) and Boeing-737 (with a capacity of 110 passengers).

However, for the first flight on this route, the airline chose a large transnational Airbus-330 aircraft with 300 seats. “It is certainly too large airplane for a voyage like this. But the partners wanted to show that they are a serious company and they have such a large aircraft. It is difficult to assess specific numbers of how the route will be loaded. A hundred passengers have booked the first flight to Kyiv. I believe this to be a good indicator,” commented Rodrigue Merhej, owner of Um Air.

According to him, Ukraine and Iran have agreed to carry out 8 flights a week split two ways. Now, three weekly flights are being serviced by Ukraine International Airlines, and another three will be carried out by Mahan Air.

This is a very important step for Ukraine, which can bring many favorable investment contacts. The availability of a direct flight is one of the key aspects of productive business relationships. The development in relationships with Iran, which now opens to the world after so many years of sanctions, could bring Ukraine many economic and political boons. Iran now has the 19th largest economy in the world, just after Canada, Spain and Turkey. Iran is the fourth country in the world in terms of proven oil reserves – 157.3 billion barrels (Russia occupies only the 8th place); and the second in terms proven gas reserves – 33.8 trillion cubic meters (Russia is the leader with 47.8 trillion cubic meters worth of reserves).

Iran currently produces about 3,113,000 barrels of oil a day and exports about 1.3 million of them. In case Iran triples these figures, it will surpass Russia on the oil market. To compete with Russia on the natural gas market, Iran should increase its production six times. That’s why Iran’s priority now is to attract investments that will dramatically increase the volume of oil and gas produced. This would knock the pride of Russian Gazprom and forever diversify the gas imports to the EU, reducing the Russian share on the European market, as well as the pro-Russian lobby in the EU.

Den has already reported briefly on the results of the intergovernmental economic commission in Tehran, referring to the statement by Hennadii Zubko, Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine. In Boryspil we could talk more about it with Mohammad Beheshti Monfared, Iran’s ambassador to Ukraine.

“Many Ukrainian companies are working on the Iranian market. Similarly, many of our businesses are represented in your country. I would not name any specific ones, so that those not named by me would not feel unnoticed. But there is a cooperation agreed between Ukraine and Iran, and it works.

“The relations between Iran and Ukraine have not established just yesterday. For many years we have been partners in the aircraft industry, machine building, metallurgy, and so on. We have joint infrastructure projects. Ukraine and Iran are good partners in science and education.

“But we want to add at least two more areas of partnership that are interesting to us – energy transit and agriculture. We have already started working in these directions. In the near future the concrete results will manifest themselves.

“A month ago there has been a very important event for our Ukrainian partnership – a meeting of the intergovernmental economic commission in Tehran. The protocol signed by representatives of both countries lists every industry in which Tehran intends to establish cooperation with Kyiv. Agricultural industry and transit are very important areas for us. We want to develop transport and logistics projects like the ‘New Silk Road,’ which was recently adopted by Ukraine. Iran will participate in this project as well.”

Iran, as a country that has one of the largest natural gas reserves worldwide, declared its interest to export this resource to Europe. Does Ukraine belong to the sphere of your interest? What amount is planned for export?

“The Deputy Prime Minister Hennadii Zubko and the Energy Minister Volodymyr Demchyshyn had very productive talks with Iranian colleagues on this topic. And now we expect concrete proposals from the Ukrainian side.

“Your government said that Ukraine is interested in purchasing oil and gas. We also find such cooperation interesting. But we still need to work a lot to talk about any concrete figures.”

For 11 years the economic relations between Ukraine and Iran have been frozen. Do any barriers still remain today, which prevent the most effective cooperation between our countries?

“I see no barriers. There used to be sanctions before. But now they are void.

“Everything is ready now to develop our relations: there is the political will, there is the desire and mutual economic interest for that.”

Your Western colleagues say that corruption prevents their cooperation with Ukraine. Do any Iranian companies complain to you about it?

“There were certain problematic moments. But I do hope that such issues will no longer arise in the future.

“The main thing is that the Ukrainian parliament and government are seriously willing to work with Iran.”