A total of 16,529 import orders were registered with the Industries, Mining and Trade Organization of Tehran Province in the first two months of the current fiscal year (March 21-May 21), of which 10,599 or 64% were accepted.
According to Houshang Rezaei-Somarin, the head of the organization’s Trade Department, the country’s registered import orders in the two months stood at 37,613, of which 27,157 or 72% of cases were accepted and 4,494 were rejected. The remaining applications are being processed.
“Tehran Province accounts for 44% of the total import orders registered in Iran,” he was quoted as saying by IRNA.
Order registration, the process of listing import items with the ministry’s authorities, is the first step for importing any type of commodity.
“Permits for importing goods are issued with great care to ensure that non-essential products that have domestic counterparts are not imported. There are also 13,163 active commercial ID cards in Tehran, which account for over 60% of all active cards in the country,” he said.
Commercial ID cards are certificates issued by the Ministry of Industries, Mining and Trade, which identifies the applicants through Iran Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture. The cards permit individuals and entities to trade as per the country’s regulations.
Latest data released by the Islamic Republic of Iran Customs Administration show a total of 5.3 million tons of goods worth $6.5 billion were imported in the month leading to May 21, indicating a 16.5% decline in weight but a 29.5% growth in value compared with the corresponding period of last year.
“Cellphones, corn, sunflower oil, soybean meal, wheat, soybeans, rice, barley, sugar and unprocessed soybean oil were Iran’s main imports last month. Imports of these 10 items totaled 3.7 million tons worth $2.1 billion and accounted for 69.5% and 33% of the country’s overall imports in terms of weight and value, respectively,” IRICA chief, Mehdi Mirashrafi, said.
Top exporters to Iran were the UAE with 1.4 million tons of goods worth $1.8 billion, China with 461,000 tons of goods worth $1.5 billion, Turkey with 581,000 tons of goods worth $642 million, Germany with 156,000 tons of goods worth $285 million and Switzerland with 359,000 tons of goods worth $283 million.
“Imports from the UAE rose by 114% and 181% in weight and value compared with last year’s same month while imports from Turkey decreased by 48% in weight and 42% in value, imports from Germany dropped by 54% and 15% in weight and value, and imports from Switzerland surged by 2,642% in weight and 2,061% in value, respectively, compared with the same month of last year,” he said.
“These five countries exported an aggregate of 2.96 million tons of goods worth $4.54 billion to Iran during the month under review to account for 55% of the country’s overall imports in terms of weight and 70% of imports in terms of value.”
Mirashrafi noted that 1.84 million tons of cargo were transited across the country during the second month of the current year, indicating a 142% increase YOY.
