Non-oil trade at over $72b in 10 months

Mehdi Mir-Ashrafi put the value of non-oil exports at $35.5 billion and that of the non-oil imports at $36.8 billion during the ten-month period.

He said the non-oil exports rose 20 percent in terms of weight while dropped three percent in terms of value, and non-oil imports increased eight percent in weight with no change in terms of value.

“Iran exported 115 million tons of goods in the said time, at the value of $35.5 billion, showing a growth of $20.76 percent compared to the same time in the year before,” the official informed.

“Imports stood at 28 million tons, worth 36 billion in the said time,” he added.

“From among the imported 28 million tons of goods, 19 million tons were basic goods,” Mirashrafi said.

According to him, “China ($8.3 billion), Iraq ($8 billion), Turkey ($4.1 billion), Emirates ($3.7 billion) and Afghanistan ($1.9 billion) were Iran’s main exports destinations in this period.”

Last week, Finance and Economic Minister Farhad Dejpasand said the decrease in the value of the non-oil export during the first ten months of this year has been mostly due to a 30-percent decrease which the government has applied on the value of the exported items, since the reported prices were believed to be more than the real value of the goods.

“The three-percent fall in terms of value is because exporters believed that the value assigned to the exported goods was more than their real value considering their base prices,” the minister said.

Iran’s non-oil trade with other countries registered a $100-million positive balance in the first nine months of the current Iranian calendar year (March 21 – December 21, 2019).

The value of Iran’s non-oil exports stood at $44.3 billion in the previous Iranian calendar year while $42.6 billion worth of commodities were shipped into the country.

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