TEHRAN – After a 1.5-year hiatus, Iran and Saudi Arabia have resumed economic exchanges with the Islamic Republic exporting $39,000 worth of commodities to the Kingdom, the spokesman of the Islamic Republic of Iran Customs Administration (IRICA) announced on Monday.

“Exports to Saudi Arabia coincided with the beginning of the two countries' talks, which is good news,” IRIB quoted Latifi as saying.

Iran and Saudi Arabia have endured rocky relations over the past few years.

Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister on Friday said the government is serious about talks with Iran as part of their agenda to stabilize the region.

The value of Iran’s non-oil trade with its 15 neighbors reached $22.588 billion in the first six months of the current Iranian calendar year (March 21-September 22) to register a 52 percent rise year on year, according to Latifi.

The Islamic Republic traded over 47.222 million tons of commodities with the neighboring countries in the mentioned year.

The volume of the traded goods in the mentioned period also increased by 37 percent compared to the figure for the previous year’s same six months.

Iran traded a total of 79.104 million tons of non-oil products worth $44.926 billion with its trade partners in the mentioned six months, he stated.

Trade with neighboring countries in the first half of the year accounted for 60 percent and 50 percent of the country’s total non-oil trade during the said period, in terms of weight and value, respectively.

The country exported over 36.087 million tons of non-oil goods worth more than $11.218 billion to the neighboring countries in the period under review, while importing more than 19.138 million tons of goods worth over $11.369 billion.

Increasing non-oil exports to the neighboring countries is one of the major plans that the Iranian government has been pursuing in recent years.

Iran shares land or water borders with 15 countries namely UAE, Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Russia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, and Saudi Arabia.

EF/MA