A large volume of auto spare parts in the Iranian market do not have an identification code, according to an expert.
Ahmad Hosseini, the head of the Tehran Automobile and Machinery Spare Parts Dealers Union, was quoted as saying by Donyaye Khodro that the average annual turnover of the domestic car spare parts market is about $11.5 billion, of which $2.5 billion pertain to unidentified parts, but not smuggled ones.
The Iranian market has a substantial volume of spare parts that have either been smuggled into the country or fabricated by unregistered manufacturers. As a result, the Ministry of Industries, Mining and Trade announced a scheme that obliged all domestic manufacturers to acquire an ID and a QR code for all spare parts, including for those produced earlier.
However, spare parts market players believe this scheme was implemented without consulting experts and without putting in place the infrastructure for implementing it.
A large part of products without an identification code have been manufactured domestically, but because these manufacturers have not been organized till today, their products are classified as goods without identity.
The Tehran Automobile and Machinery Spare Parts Dealers Union had earlier presented a chart showing the number of spare parts produced by unofficial manufacturers, which was accepted by the Industries Ministry.
Hosseini noted that the Industries Ministry had announced in a recent meeting that 30% of spare parts in the market are smuggled.
“We requested them in a letter to present documents proving the presence of this volume of smuggled parts so that we could take measures to deal with these smuggled products. Unfortunately, we have not received an answer till today and we do not know the basis of these figures,” he said.
“Until we see those documents, we cannot comment on the accuracy of those statistics. Data presented by us, which were accepted by the Industries Ministry in the fiscal 2019-20, contradicted those statistics.”
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 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 largest 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 painted 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 it is stated that car spare parts topped the list of smuggled goods, it is not clear how much was smuggled into the country and how many were produced by underground and unofficial domestic units.
“The problem with evaluating this volume of smuggling is that it is not clear how much of these goods were imported and how much was produced illegally. 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 another problem is that the size of the spare parts market in Iran is not known.
“Therefore, it was decided that ISACO, SAIPA Yadak and the Association of Homogeneous Propulsion Industries and Component Manufacturers cooperate to survey the spare parts market and determine how much of it is domestic and what percentage comprises counterfeit production and smuggling,” he said.
In the field of auto parts, domestic car batteries and tires were obliged 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 noted that Iran has 1,500 car component and spare parts producers.
