President Zillur Bahman and his Iranian counterpart Dr Mahmoud Ahmadinejad emphasised the importance of enhancing trade and commerce relations between the two countries.

"Though the bilateral relations between Dhaka and lehran are excellent since long, die economic cooperation is not that much significant between the two countries," Zillur said while holding a bilateral meeting with the Iranian president on Monday on the sidelines of the COMCEC economic summit here.

Zillur said Bangladesh is keen to identify more areas of cooperation to add substance to the existing bilateral relations particularly in the fields of trade, investment, energy, tourism, agriculture and transport.

The Iranian businessmen can import world standard Bangladeshi garment products, ceramics, pharmaceutical products, frozen fish, leather and leadier goods, he said.

"Iranian entrepreneurs can also invest in different thrust sectors in Bangladesh by taking the advantage of the government's liberal policy for increasing foreign direct investment (FDD," he said.

Zillur also urged the Iranian president to recruit more skilled manpower including physicians and engineers form Bangladesh, those can contribute to the economyofboth thecountries.

The two presidents gave their opinions in favour of exchanging visits of business delegations and holding single country trade fair to explore new avenues of the trade relations.

Mentioning Bangladesh as

a peace loving country, Zillur said Bangladesh always against any form of terrorism.

Appreciating Iran's principled position on the issue of Palestine, he said Bangladeshis totally committed to the Palestinian brethren and solidarity with their just struggle for self-determination and sovereign statehood.

Zillur invited Ahmadinejad to visit Bangladesh at his convenience. In reply, the Iranian president said the people of Bangladesh are friend of Iran "I love Bangladeshi people deep from my heart and would like to convey my compliment and felicitation to them."

Terming Bangladesh is a great nation with huge human resources, he hoped that under the leadership of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasian, the country would be able to reach its desired goal soon.