TEHRAN – The fifth meeting of the Tehran Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture (TCCIMA)’s Export Development, and Trade Facilitation Committee was held on Monday to explore ways of promoting non-oil exports and removing the barriers in the way of foreign trade.

As reported by the TCCIMA portal, the meeting was hosted by the Trade Promotion Organization (TPO) and attended by the TPO Head Alireza Peyman Pak.

Opening the meeting, Mohammad Lahouti, head of the TCCIMA Export Development and Trade Facilitation Committee, underlined the positive impacts of the government foreign trade policies in recent months, saying that the volume of exports has increased with decisions taken to facilitate trade processes and there is hope that this upward trend will continue.

Mentioning some of the problems facing the country’s traders over the past few years, Lahouti stressed the need to establish a unified procedure in determining the country’s trade policies and added: "An issue that is of great importance in foreign trade is the unified procedure in decision-making. Fortunately, recent developments have taken place in this field and it seems that the Trade Promotion Organization has been given the significance it deserves.”

Further in the meeting, representatives of various export-oriented organizations expressed their views.

Mohammad Reza Farshchian, a member of the union of dried fruit exporters, during his speech, pointed out the problems created for exporters since the Iranian calendar year 1397 (ended in March 2019) and said: “In the Iranian calendar year 1398, an import-for-export method was implemented for the dried fruit products and led to acceptable results and within ten days $3 billion dollars of currency was returned to the country’s economic cycle, but the use of this method was stopped after a while.”

Farshchian called for the resumption of the imports in exchange for exports method, saying that dried fruit exporters had not been able to meet their foreign currency return obligations since February last year.

Elsewhere in the meeting, Peyman Pak responded to the concerns and requests raised by the attendees, and noted that the government believes that under normal circumstances, applying ceiling conditions for the import of goods is not productive; but given the circumstances, this condition has been applied.

The official noted that the Ministry of Industry, Mining, and Trade has decided that as of the next fiscal year (starts in late March 2022), the condition of the ceiling and record for imports will be completely removed.

EF/MA

Photo: Head of the TCCIMA Export Development and Trade Facilitation Committee Mohammad Lahouti (1st R) and TPO Head Alireza Peyman Pak (C) speaking at a meeting on Monday.