In the meetings held here during past two days, Iranian and Indian officials voiced their resolve to boost economic relations.

The Secretary General of Tehran's Chamber of Commerce Mohammad- Mehdi Rasekh said Sunday that the existing potentials and capacities for trade between Iran and India are way beyond the current bilateral trade volume, the local satellite Press TV reported.

There is possibility for both countries to expand trade relations in a much wider scale, Rasekh was quoted as saying.

Rashid Alvi, head of an 80-member Indian business and economic delegation which arrived in Iran on Friday for a five-day visit, lauded relations between Iran and India as conducive for the entire region, the website of state IRIB TV reported.

"Holding discussions at regular intervals on bilateral economic and political cooperation will be beneficial not only to Iran and India but also for peace and security of the region and the world, " Alvi, also the spokesperson of the Indian Congress, was quoted as saying.

Iran, as a long-standing friend to India, has made considerable progress in all sectors and is a promising country which India hopes to boost ties with, said Alvi.

Reciprocal flow of investments will enhance bilateral trade and the outcome will also boost the political relationship between the two friendly nations, he added.

The global financial crisis has shown that there was no choice but to strengthen regional cooperation to minimize the impact, the report quoted him as saying.

Head of Iran's Chamber of Commerce, Industries and Mines, Mohammad Nahavandian, said Saturday that Indian economy provides a good opportunity for Iran to cooperate and interact with the country, the official IRNA news agency reported.

Nahavandian told IRNA on the sidelines of the meeting with visiting Indian business and economic delegation that Iran is ready to start cooperation with India whose economy is now experiencing a 10-percent growth, said the report.

India is a country with ample opportunities with which Iran seeks to expand ties, he was quoted as saying.

Nahavandian added that the current trade, banking and insurance cooperation between the two countries should be further broadened.

In a meeting with a group of Iranian businessmen and experts in Tehran on Saturday, Joint Secretary of India's Ministry of Commerce and Industry Arvind Mehta said that the value of India- Iran transactions will hit 25 billion U.S. dollars in the next four years, according to IRNA.

Mehta put the current level of bilateral transactions at around 15 billion dollars, adding that the trade balance with Iran is currently in Tehran's favor.

Iran sells oil to India worth some 13 billion dollars annually but imports about 2.5 billion dollars worth of goods from India.

The Indian official said that the visit of Indian economic delegation will play an important role in enhancing mutual ties.

Refusing to join the West-sponsored sanctions against the Islamic republic over its controversial nuclear program, India has found it an opportunity to increase its exports to Iran in the absence of Iran's former economic partners.

Iran has agreed to receive over 40 percent of its revenue from its oil exports to India in rupees.

The United Nations Security Council and Western countries have imposed a series of economic sanctions on Iran in the past years over the country's controversial nuclear program.

Most of the Iranian financial institutions are barred from directly accessing the U.S. and the European Union financial systems.

Also, the United States has put pressures and controls on the international financial institutions which are linked to the Islamic republic and has warned them about the risks of doing business with Iran.

The United States has been rallying its allies in imposing similar sanction pressures on Iran's financial system over its disputed nuclear program, which Tehran describes as solely for " peaceful" use of nuclear energy while the United States and its Western allies suspect as an attempt to acquire nuclear weapons.

In February, the Governor of the Iranian Central Bank Mahmoud Bahmani said that Iran would accept both gold and other countries' national currencies as payment for its oil.

"In trade with foreign nations Iran will not limit itself to the U.S. dollar. Our trade partners may provide payment in their own currency. If the country wishes, it can pay us in gold, and we will accept it without any reservations," Bahmani said.

He said that a separate barter arrangement also exists. Iran can receive goods from the countries instead of the hard currency and will face no problem, he added.