TEHRAN- Commodities valued at $129.362 million were exported from Fars Province, in the south of Iran, during the first nine months of the current Iranian calendar year (March 20-December 20), according to a provincial official.

Khodadad Rahimi, the director-general of the province’s customs department, said the value of exported products in the nine-month period has risen 10 percent compared to the same time span of the past year.

He also put the weight of exported goods at 328,009 tons, which has been 30 percent more than the amount of export in the first nine months of the previous year.

He said that the goods were exported to 51 countries, mainly Iraq, Afghanistan, Turkey, Pakistan, Kuwait, China, Germany, UAE, Vietnam and Qatar, adding that aluminum, dairy products, tomatoes, tomato paste, fish and figs accounted for the largest volume of exports.

The value of Iran’s non-oil trade in the first nine months of the current Iranian calendar year stood at $52 billion, according to the head of the Islamic Republic of Iran Customs Administration (IRICA).

The total volume of the country’s non-oil trade was 110 million tons in the mentioned nine months, of which over 85.2 million tons were exported commodities and about 25 million tons were imported goods, Mehdi Mir-Ashrafi announced.

The official put the total value of the imports into the country during the said time span at $26.8 billion, while the value of exports was reported to be $25.1 billion.

According to Mir-Ashrafi, 17.5 million tons of the imported commodities into the country in the period under review were basic goods, accounting for the lion's share of the imports in terms of weight.

Iran's top five non-oil export destinations during this period were China with $6.4 billion worth of exports, Iraq with $5.9 billion, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) with over $3.3 billion, Turkey with $1.8 billion, and Afghanistan with $1.7 billion.

Meanwhile, the country’s top five sources of imports during this period were China with $7 billion, the UAE with $6.3 billion, Turkey with $3 billion, India with $1.6 billion, and Germany with $1.6 billion worth of imports.

Like all other countries around the world, Iran’s trade with its foreign partners has been affected by the coronavirus pandemic, however, the situation is getting back to normal and the country’s trade is reaching its pre-pandemic levels.

As previously announced by the IRICA head, the value of Iran’s non-oil trade stood at $85 billion in the past Iranian calendar year of 1398 (ended on March 19, 2020).

Mehdi Mir-Ashrafi put the weight of the country’s annual non-oil trade at 170 million tons and said this amount of trade was achieved despite the severe sanctions.

MA/MA