Azernews.Az

By Gunay Hasanova

Philippines plan to buy more oil products from Iran, and the issue was mulled during the meeting between Philippines Secretary of Finance Carlos Dominguez and Iranian ambassador Mohammad Tanhaei.

The Iranian government has expressed interest in working with the Philippines’ energy sector in the fields of oil exploration and the petroleum product trade, Philippines Department of Finance reported.

“In return, Iran promised to source more bananas from the Philippines. We do want to improve our relationship with Iran,” Dominguez said.

Currently Philippines do not intake Iranian oil, while it is importing almost 70 percent of its needs from Persian Gulf’s Arab nations, like Kuwait, from Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Oman, according to the official statistics.

Philippines imported 5.9 million barrels of crude oil from Iran in 2011. However, following the imposition of the international sanctions against Tehran, the oil supplies were ceased.

In January 2012, President Benigno Aquino III appealed to a number of U.S. lawmakers to consider Philippine interests, as it would want to maintain "non-harmful" trade with Iran

Philippine’s fruit exports to Iran was greatly affected also. 30 percent of Philippine banana exports go to Iran.

Obstacles to the trade relations between the two countries were reduced with the lifting of sanctions against Iran with the securing of the Iran nuclear deal.

Iran exported about 2.05 million barrels per day (mb/d) of crude oil, 435,000 b/d of gas condensate and the more than 400,000 b/d of oil products like diesel and mazut in September.

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Gunay Hasanova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @gunhasanova

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