TEHRAN- Over 8.866 million tons of basic commodities worth $3.974 billion have been imported to the country during the first four months of the current Iranian calendar year (March 20-July 21), the spokesman of the Islamic Republic of Iran Customs Administration (IRICA) told Mehr news agency.

Rouhollah Latifi put the imported basic goods at 8.831 million tons valued at $5.746 billion during the same period of time in the past year, indicating a 30-percent drop in the value of imports.

The official further said that there is no shortage of basic goods in the country.

IRICA head has previously announced that 25 million tons of basic goods have been cleared from Iran’s customs during the previous Iranian calendar year (ended on March 19).

According to Mehdi Mirashrafi, 35 million tons of commodities were imported into the country in the mentioned year, of which 25 million tons were basic goods.

Noting that the coronavirus outbreak has decreased the level of trade in the current Iranian calendar year, the official said in late June: “This year, the trend has slowed down, and we hope that with the measures taken by the Central Bank [of Iran (CBI)], the Industry Ministry, and IRICA, we will be able to minimize the deposition of goods in the customs before and after clearance. In this regard, we are going to make a new proposal to the government through the Finance and Economic Affairs Ministry.”

Last week, IRICA proposed some solutions to the Finance and Economic Affairs Ministry for facilitating the clearance of goods and preventing commodity pile-up at the customs.

IRICA Deputy Head Mehrdad Jamal Orounaqi has proposed the said solutions in a letter to the Finance and Economic Affairs Minister Farhad Dejpasand.

In this letter, Orounaqi has called for the reduction of the time for issuing clearance licenses to a maximum of seven days.

The need for clear classification and determining the priority basic goods (the commodities which should be cleared in the shortest possible time) by a single supervisor body or organization was one of the major suggestions that were singled out in Orounaqi’s proposal.

Back in August 2019, in a directive addressing IRICA, Dejpasand obliged the customs administration to take necessary measures for facilitating customs processes.

Following the Finance Ministry’s directive, in January 2020, IRICA obliged the customs departments throughout the country to take necessary measures for the facilitation of the clearance of basic goods.

The new instructions declared to the country’s customs departments required the representatives of the related organizations to act under the supervision of IRICA for conducting necessary controls and inspections.

MA/MA