Iran’s exports plummeted by up to 47% in the first month of the current fiscal year (March 20-April 19, 2020) on the back of the coronavirus pandemic, Mojtaba Mousavian, a senior official with Trade Promotion Organization of Iran, says.
“However, the country managed to constantly improve exports over 10 months to Jan. 19; figures show a 20% decline in exports and a 15% decrease in imports during the 10-month period compared with the corresponding period of last year. We hope to increase this year’s exports to 80-85% of the level they were last year,” he told the Persian-language daily Iran.
Noting that the negative impact of the pandemic on Iran’s foreign trade is 10%, the official said, “US Sanctions are largely to blame for the slowdown in exports. They were getting tougher by the day since the beginning of last year up until the end of Donald Trump’s term in office; he churned out sanctions against Iranian companies and institutions and those foreign companies which were cooperating with Iran until the last day of his presidency. However, Iran’s economy has survived both the US sanctions and Covid-19.”
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