A total of 75,972 tons of foreign goods were transited from the Mehran Border Terminal, located in Ilam Province along Iran’s border with Iraq, during the first eight months of the current Iranian year (March 21-Nov. 21), registering a 55% rise compared with the corresponding period of last year, according to Zahedin Cheshmeh-Khavar, a local official.
“A total of 4,487 transit trucks crossed this border during the period,” he was also quoted as saying by the news portal of the Ministry of Roads and Urban Development.
He added that 4.56 million passengers crossed the border during the period, including 3.99 million Iranians and 571,184 foreign nationals.
Mehran is Iran’s closest border city to Baghdad, located 230 km east of the Iraqi capital.
Rouhollah Gholami, a local customs official, earlier said 2.35 million tons of goods worth $1.09 billion were exported from Iran to Iraq through Mehran during the same period, registering an 84% and 72% rise in weight and value respectively compared with the corresponding period of last year, according to a local customs official.
“Ilam Province accounted for 23% of Iran’s total exports to Iraq during the period,” Gholami was quoted as saying by IRIB News.
Fruit and vegetable, plastic, industrial and metal products, construction materials, glass and sheet glass, and home appliances were the main exports.
Iran exported a total of $4.02 billion worth of goods to Iraq during the period, registering a 26.5% fall compared with the corresponding period of last year, according to the spokesperson of the Islamic Republic of Iran Customs Administration.
Ceramic products, dairy products and light oils were the main exported products, he noted.
Hamid Hosseini, a board member of Iran-Iraq Chamber of Commerce, says the decline experienced in Iran’s exports to Iraq is to blame on several factors, including the change of government in the neighboring country, Arbaeen commemorations that caused a temporary suspension of trade, and the abolition of subsidized imports in Iran.
“We have tried hard over the years to find a foothold in the Iraqi market. At present, two other countries that are extensively active in Iraq are China and Turkey, but the products each of these countries offer do not exactly overlap. Turkey mainly exports gold, plastic, and apparel to Iraq while China sells electronic devices, home appliances and turbines. We are not prominent exporters in any of these goods so there is no competition there,” he said.
Iraq is one of the main destinations of Iran’s agricultural and food products as well as mineral and mining industries’ exports.
The Iranian government put an end to many years of paying massive subsidies to import essential goods in May.
