The two-year ban on importing car filters has been lifted, secretary of Iran’s Filter Manufacturers and Exporters Association announced.
Ali Soleimani also told Donyaye Khodro that filters can be imported on condition that they are bought directly from the manufacturing countries and approved by the Iranian filter association.
“Filters should be bought from countries with high technologies in the field, such as Germany, Italy, Japan and South Korea,” he added.
Referring to the ban on filter import due to the production of similar products in Iran, he said when car filters’ import was not restricted, some profiteers imported fake products from Asian countries in the name of European and South Korean products and sold them as genuine components.
As this harmed domestic industries, filter imports were banned and traders were only allowed to import products that did not have a domestic counterpart.
"When the import registrations are made with the Ministry of Industries, Mining and Trade, they will be examined by the association and approved if the components are required domestically," he said.
"Any car filter import from countries [other than those mentioned], such as the UAE, China, etc., still remains prohibited."
Soleimani stressed that all the official filter manufacturers of Iran have agreed to lift the import ban because the presence of high-quality and original products from reputable foreign car manufacturers creates competition and leads to the improvement of the country's filter industry.
The official said the tariff for importing the products of reputable companies is clear and the association will only grant an import permit if the filter is authentic.
He also warned against the production of seemingly foreign filters with the permission of unrelated unions and said: "Don't be deceived by the fancy packaging of car filters that are sold as original products for use in imported cars. All of them are fake and produced in underground workshops, or workshops licensed by unrelated unions."
Soleimani noted that in the past two years until Aug. 29, the import of all light and heavy vehicle filters to the country was prohibited.
"Accordingly, there is no officially endorsed foreign product in the market and all the products sold as original filters with foreign packaging in the market are counterfeit and of poor quality, and they are either produced in underground workshops [or smuggled into the country],” he said.
Auto Spare Parts Top Contraband
Automotive spare parts topped the list of smuggled goods in the fiscal 2021-22 (ended March 20), according to Spokesman of the Headquarters to Combat Smuggling of Goods and Foreign Exchange Hamid Reza Dehqani-Nia.
He announced that $17.1 billion worth of smuggled goods entered the country in the fiscal 2020-21.
The spokesman noted that after car spare parts, food was the second biggest category of contraband last year, while computer equipment and home appliances respectively ranked third and fourth in the fiscal 2021-22, the news portal of Iran’s Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture reported.
According to Dehqani-Nia, many household appliances in the Iranian market are counterfeit.
"These products are Iranian goods fabricated or repaired in unofficial workshops and sold in the domestic market as foreign and banned brands," he said, without mentioning the value of smuggled car spare parts.
Mohammad Reza Najafi-Manesh, a member of the Tehran Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture and chairman of the Association of Homogeneous Propulsion Industries and Component Manufacturers, said although car spare parts topped the list of smuggled goods, their volume is not known, especially those produced by unofficial domestic units.
“In other words, if a product is found to be illegal, it may have been smuggled into the country, or illegally produced by unlicensed units inside the country,” he added.
Najafi-Manesh noted that ISACO, SAIPA Yadak and the Association of Homogeneous Propulsion Industries and Component Manufacturers have been entrusted with the task of jointly surveying the spare parts market and determining how much of it is domestic and what percentage comprises counterfeit production and smuggling.
In the field of auto parts, domestic car batteries and tires were mandated to have ID and tracking codes, and it was decided that 55 other commodities produced by 173 domestic companies would receive ID and tracking codes.
Najafi-Manesh said Iran has 1,500 car component and spare parts producers.
