TEHRAN - Central Bank of Iran (CBI) has supplied $9.5 billion for importing basic goods as well as medicine in the first six months of the current Iranian calendar year (March 21-September 22), an official with the bank announced.

As reported by IRIB, Shiva Raveshi said the government allocated $8 billion for the supply of basic goods and medicine in the current fiscal year’s budget bill, all of which has been supplied in the first half of the year and $1.5 billion has also been supplied for the imports of Covid-19 vaccine.

“The $9.5 billion that has been provided this year is almost equal to the total currency provided for the imports of basic goods in the previous calendar year (ended on March 20); this shows that this year we performed better in terms of meeting the real needs of the country,” she said.

Raveshi pointed to the achievements of the bank despite the difficulties created by the U.S. sanctions, saying: “In the conditions of sanctions and reduction of oil revenues, we were able to meet the basic needs of the country and even the necessary materials for the production units, which is considered a success for the country and shows that the capacity of the country's non-oil exports is increasing.”

Back in August, the CBI had announced that the bank supplied about $15 billion for importing basic goods, raw materials, and machinery as well as medicine in the first four months of the current Iranian calendar year (March 21-July 22), $4.6 billion of which was allocated for the imports of essential goods and medicine, which was 70 percent more than the allocation in the previous year’s same time span.

Iranian former President Hassan Rouhani had said in July that enough basic and strategic goods were imported into the country and there are no worries over the supply of such commodities.

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

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 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.

According to the IRICA head, 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.

EF/MA