TEHRAN- Half of Iran’s non-oil exports was to its neighboring countries in the past Iranian calendar year (ended on March 20, 2019), Saeed Zarandi, the deputy industry, mining and trade minister for planning, announced in a press conference on Saturday.

The official said of the total $46 billion worth of non-oil exports in the past year, some $23.4 billion was to 15 neighbors, IRNA reported.

Zarandi further pointed to development of non-oil exports as one of the major seven plans of the ministry under the sanctions time and said, “Given the difficulty in international transactions, we put development of non-oil exports specially to the neighboring countries a top agenda of our work in the current year.”

The official also mentioned promotion of domestic production, development of mining sector, benefiting from knowledge-based companies, market management, and improvement of business environment as some other priorities of the ministry in the current year.

In mid-April, Iranian industry, mining and trade minister said the country plans to double its exports to the neighboring countries by the Iranian calendar year of 1400 (which starts in March 2021).

Mentioning the fact that only two percent of the total imports of Iran’s neighbors comes from the Islamic country, Rahmani noted that his ministry is going to focus on developing domestic production and defining new projects to manufacture all the industrial equipment needed inside the country.

The official further pointed to some of the potent areas which could be worked on in order to increase exports including home appliances, apparel industry, petrochemicals, and marine industries, basic metals such as steel, aluminum and copper as well as agriculture.

MA/MA