TEHRAN - Iran’s customs revenues increased by 87 percent in the first five months of the current Iranian calendar year (March 21-August 22) as compared to the same period last year, according to the head of the Islamic Republic of Iran Customs Administration (IRICA).

Mohammad Rezvanifar said on Tuesday that his organization’s revenues amounted to 610 trillion rials ($1.25 billion) in the mentioned five months, IRNA reported.

According to the official, the surge in customs revenues came despite new import duty exemptions applied to some basic goods like medicine.

The IRICA head said Iran’s customs income reached 1.58 quadrillion[ef1] rials (about $3.23 billion) in the previous Iranian calendar year (ended on March 20), making it the third largest source of revenues for the government after oil export and tax.

He also pointed to some details about Iran’s non-oil trade performance in the five months to late August, saying the country exported a total of $18.7 billion worth of commodities over the period, down eight percent year on year.

Rezvanifar said the main cause of the fall in export revenues this year is the decline in global prices of petrochemical products which account for a bulk of Iranian overseas shipments.

He said imports into Iran, however, increased by 8.7 percent year on year in the said five months to reach $23.4 billion, adding that cargo transit via Iran had also risen by 2.7 percent in volume terms over the same period.

Iran has increasingly relied on trade income, including customs and transit revenues, as part of a policy introduced in recent years to diversify the economy away from oil.

Iran’s foreign trade reached a total of $113 billion last calendar year with exports hitting a milestone figure of $53 billion, up 10% from the year before.

EF/