TEHRAN – Iran’s recently-appointed Industry, Mining, and Trade Minister Alireza Razm Hosseini said that improving the country’s non-oil exports has been a priority of his ministry since he took office, the ministry’s news portal Shata reported.

In the past month, the first and most important mission defined in the ministry has been to remove the barriers in the way of the country's exports, Razm Hosseini said in a meeting with the country’s major exporters on Saturday.

According to the minister, the past five sessions of the Government's Economic Coordination Headquarters have been focusing on the issues related to the exports, and the supply of foreign currency earned from the exports for the imports of the country’s needs, that is allowing exports in return for the imports of commodities required by the government.

“President Rouhani is expected to instruct new policies on the process of exports in return for imports, over the next few days,” he added.

Razm Hosseini noted that the list of import items required by the country has been prepared, which will be provided to the exporters, and all exporters with a foreign currency commitment from the previous year (ended on March 19) can introduce an importer or be the importer themselves to be allowed to export.

The official further emphasized the need for providing necessary grounds with the cooperation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to facilitate the conditions for increasing trade with neighboring countries.

Promoting this type of barter trade (allowing exports in return for imports) has been used several times over the past five decades in Iran.

For instance, a program exactly like the one recently proposed, was implemented in the Iranian calendar year 1370 (started in March 1991), in which the government allowed traders to export whatever goods they could manage but expected them to import only the commodity items specified by the government.

Also, the government has recently proposed a scheme for barter trade of oil in return for importing basic goods.

In the mentioned scheme, the government supports the traders to export crude oil in exchange for other commodities.

EF/MA