Non-oil exports will reach $48 billion by the end of the current Iranian year (March 2015), a number that shows more markets have opened to Iranian-made products, Secretary of the Tehran Chamber of Commerce, Industries and Mines, Hossein Noghrehkar Shirazi, said on Wednesday.
“Export development is the only way through which Iran’s ailing economy can be cured. Export means paying attention to production, increasing productivity and having an effective presence in the global markets,” he was quoted by ISNA as saying.
Shirazi said that a substantial amount of Iran’s exports is managed by the government, and added, “Unnecessary laws that tend to hamper export are being removed gradually.” Having a strong presence in the global markets is of high value for any country, he asserted.
The government is trying to generate new sources of revenue to replace traditional oil revenue. The move is in line with the new economic policy, which is aimed at to lessen the effects of economic sanctions imposed by the EU and the US over Tehran’s nuclear energy program – particularly those affecting the oil industry and the banking system.
Yet, the government’s projection for the increase in non-oil exports tells of different statistics. If everything goes according to plan, non-oil exports would reach $61 billion by March 2015, the deputy chairman of the Trade Promotion Organization of Iran, Yaghmour Gholizadeh, said recently.
In the meantime, deputy minister of industry, mine and trade, Mojtaba Khosrotaj, said on Wednesday that Iran faces no difficulty boosting its non-oil exports. “As statistics from the last six months show, all obstacles have been removed an non-oil exports will definitely increase to a desirable level,” he said.
Khosrotaj also asserted that improving ties with the world and expanding target markets are two prerequisites for the development of non-oil exports.
