TEHRAN - Trade between Iran and India increased by five percent in the first two months of 2024 compared to the same period last year, with the total trade reaching $377 million, according to the Ministry of Commerce and Industry of India.

The value of trade between Iran and India was reported to be around $358 million in the first two months of 2023, IRNA reported.

India's exports to Iran saw a 20 percent jump in January and February 2024 compared to the same period last year, reaching $269 million. India exported $224 million worth of commodities to Iran in the same period in 2023.

But India's imports from Iran saw a 19 percent decline in the mentioned two months compared to the same period in 2023, reaching $108 million. India had imported $134 million worth of goods from the Islamic Republic in the first two months of the last year.

Iran’s main import items from India were rice, fruits, and oil seeds press cake in the first two months of the current year.

India mainly imported fruits, raw materials for paint production, and petroleum products from Iran in the first two months of 2024.

Iran exported $2.217 billion worth of goods to India during the past Iranian calendar year (ended on March 19), according to an official with Iran’s Trade Promotion Organization (TPO).

Hadi Talebian Moghaddam, the director of TPO department for Indian Subcontinent Affairs, said on Sunday that the figure shows a two percent increase in comparison to the $2.175 billion reported a year earlier.

Noting that Iran’s balance of trade with India turned positive last year, he put Iran’s last year's imports from India at $1.916 billion.

India’s Ministry of Commerce and Industry recently issued a report that put the country’s trade exchanges with Iran in January at over $200 million.

The figure was up three percent in comparison to that of January 2023 when bilateral exchanges stood at $197 million.

The value of trade between Iran and India reached $1.836 billion in 2023, according to India’s Ministry of Commerce and Industry.

The trade exchange between the two countries declined by 26 percent in 2023 compared to the previous year, the figure was reported to be $2.499 billion in 2022.

According to the Indian Ministry data, Iran exported commodities valued at $699 million to India during the past year, registering no significant change from 2022.

Petroleum products were the top goods imported by India from Iran in 2023, and India imported $221 million worth of such products from Iran this year. The import of Iranian oil products by India in 2023 increased by 26 percent compared to the previous year.

Raw materials for dye production and various fruits were also among the top exported goods to India in 2023.

India's exports to Iran in January-December 2023 experienced a 35 percent decrease and reached $1.187 billion. In the previous year, India had exported $1.847 billion worth of goods to Iran.

Rice was the top export product of India to Iran in 2023. India's rice exports to Iran decreased by 34 percent in 2023, falling from $1.98 billion in 2022 to $723 million.

India's tea export to Iran also declined by almost a third, from $86 million in 2022 to $30 million in 2023. The country’s fruit exports to Iran however increased by 14 percent and reached $55 million and spice exports decreased by 28 percent to $15 million.

EF