TEHRAN – The value of Iran’s export to India rose 91% in the first two months of 2023, as compared to the same period of time in 2022, according to the data released by the Indian Ministry of Commerce and Industry.

The Indian ministry put the worth of Iran’s exports to India at $134 million in January-February 2023, while the figure was $70 million in the same time span of 2023, IRIB reported.

India’s 2-month export to Iran fell 34 percent year on year.

The two countries’ value of trade dropped 13 percent to $358 million in the first two months of this year from $412 million in the first two months of the past year.

Based to the data previously released by the Indian Ministry of Commerce and Industry, the value of Iran’s export to India increased by 60 percent in 2022 as compared to the preceding year.

The Indian ministry put the worth of Iran’s exports to India at $653 million in 2022, while the figure was $409 million in 2021.

As reported, petroleum products have been the major goods imported by India from Iran in the said months.

According to the mentioned data, the value of trade between Iran and India reached $2.5 billion in 2022, rising 48 percent from $1.693 billion in 2021.

During January-December 2022, India’s export to Iran also increased by 44 percent to stand at $1.847 billion, while the figure was $1.284 billion in 2021.

Rice was India’s major product exported to Iran in the said period during which the country shipped $1.098 billion worth of rice to the Islamic Republic.

In late May 2022, the Iranian ambassador to India said that Iran and India are trying to diversify the channels of payments to expand bilateral trade.

In an exclusive interview with Financial Express Online, Ali Chegeni said, “We are trying to diversify the channels of payments and accordingly wish to extend and expand an already existing mechanism in order to cover all of the goods and services including all of the non-oil goods and to achieve this”.

During the past two years, because of Covid restrictions, we pursue the issue via virtual dialogues and currently, our officials are following the matter through the exchange of delegations, the envoy stated at the time.

“We want to develop our economic and trade relations beyond energy and petrochemical products. because, due to the complementarity of Iran and India's economies, an extensive range of non-oil trade exists between the two sides including trade on goods and services, investment, tourism, education, and … which may pave the way for multiplying our economic relations ten times more than current relations in mid and long terms”, Chegeni said.

MA