TEHRAN- The secretary of Iran’s Association of Petrochemical Industry Corporations (APIC) announced that petrochemical companies account for 40 percent of the total export revenues injected to the country’s Forex Management Integrated System, locally known as NIMA.

As Mohammad Abhari told IRNA on Saturday, 90 percent of the country’s petrochemical complexes have exceeded their commitment to supply their export revenues into the NIMA system.

“For example, in cases that the commitment was to supply 70 percent of export revenues, some companies injected 90 percent or even 100 percent of their revenues,” Abhari said.

Earlier, the head of National Petrochemical Company (NPC) had said that 85 percent of the petrochemical companies’ export revenues were injected into the NIMA system in the previous Iranian calendar year 1398 (ended on March 19).

Behzad Mohammadi said that the petrochemical sector earned Iran $14.5 billion in revenue last calendar year to March 2020.

The official noted that the last calendar year was marked with success for the petrochemical sector as production forecasts came true.

He said the petrochemical output reached 31 million tons last calendar year, 23 million tons of which was exported and the rest was supplied on domestic markets.

The official mentioned that petrochemical prices dropped 30 percent on average last calendar year, year-on-year, adding that petrochemicals exports earned Iran $9.5 billion while domestic market purchased $5 billion of petrochemicals.

NIMA, which seeks to boost transparency, create competitiveness among exchange shops and a secure environment for traders, is a new chance for importers to supply their required foreign currency without specific problems and for exporters to re-inject their earned foreign currency to domestic forex market.

Secondary foreign exchange market was inaugurated in early July 2018 to allow exporters of non-oil commodities to sell their foreign currency earnings to importers of consumer products.

EF/MA