TEHRAN- The value of export from Mazandaran province in the north of Iran rose 45 percent during the first six months of the current Iranian calendar year (March 21-September 21), as compared to the same period of time in the past year, a provincial official announced.

Ali Yousefi-Manesh, an official with the province’s customs department, announced that commodities worth $134.7 million were exported from the province in the six-month period.

He mentioned cement, minerals, kerosene and crude oil, dairy products, wood and wooden objects, plastics, various food products, paper and ordinary metals as Mazandaran's major exported goods, and Russian Federation, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Iraq and Romania as the main export destinations.

The official also said that the province’s foreign trade witnessed a 43-percent growth to stand at $1.867 million tons in the first half of the present year.

He further announced that over 1.419 million tons of commodities were imported to the province in the six-month period, and named barley, corn, soybeans, animal and vegetable fats and oils, wheat, wood and wooden objects, oil coke, base oil, cardboard paper and machinery and its components as the main imported items, while Russia, UAE, Kazakhstan, Turkey and Turkmenistan as the major sources of imports.

As announced by the head of the Islamic Republic of Iran Customs Administration (IRICA), the value of Iran’s non-oil trade rose 47 percent during the first half of the current Iranian calendar year, as compared to the same period of time in the past year.

Mehdi Mir-Ashrafi said that Iran has traded 79.1 million tons of non-oil products worth $45 billion with other countries in the mentioned period.

The official put the six-month non-oil exports at 60 million tons valued at $21.8 billion, with a 61-percent rise in value and a 30-percent growth in weight.

The IRICA head mentioned liquefied natural gas, methanol, polyethylene, semi-finished iron products, iron ingots, propane, urea, gasoline, iron rods and cathodes as the main exported products in the said time span.

He said major export destinations of the Iranian non-oil goods were China with about 14.8 million tons worth $6.5 billion, Iraq with 13.9 million tons worth $3.8 billion, Turkey with 7.2 million tons worth $2.3 billion, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) with 5.8 million tons worth $2.2 billion, and Afghanistan with 2.5 million tons worth $1.0 billion.

The official further announced that Iran has imported 19.1 million tons of non-oil commodities worth $23.1 billion in the first six months of the present year, with a 37-percent growth in value and a 15-percent rise in weight year on year.

Mir-Ashrafi named cellphones, livestock corn, sunflower oil, barley, meal, wheat, soybeans, sugar, palm oil, and rice as the main imported commodities.

The United Arab Emirates with 5.9 million tons of goods worth $7.3 billion was the top exporter to Iran in the said period, followed by China with 1.5 million tons of goods worth $5.0 billion, Turkey with 2.1 million tons worth $2.4 billion, and Switzerland with one million tons worth $900,000, the official stated.

According to the official, out of the total 19.1 million tons of goods imported into the country in the first six months of this year, 14.3 million worth $8.9 billion were basic goods, which constitutes 75 percent of the total imported goods.

The IRICA head has announced that the value of Iran’s non-oil trade stood at $73 billion in the past Iranian calendar year.

Mir-Ashrafi has put the weight of non-oil trade at 146.4 million tons, and said that the figure shows a 25-million-ton annual decline, which is the result of sanctions and coronavirus pandemic.

MA/MA