Iran’s Exports to Russia Rise, Imports Fall

Iran exported $228 million worth of goods to Russia during the first half of 2017, indicating a 36% increase compared with last year’s corresponding period, Iran’s commercial attaché to Russia said.

Farhad Parand added that imports from Russia to Iran stood at $509 million during the period, showing a 16% decline year-on-year, IRNA reported.

“Iran-Russia bilateral trade stood at $737 million over the period, registering an over 3% decrease compared with the corresponding period of last year,” he said.

The official announced that a joint forum chaired by Iranian deputy minister of industries, mines and trade, Mojtaba Khosrotaj, and his Russian counterpart, Georgy Vladimirovich Kalamanov, is scheduled for October 25-28 in Russia’s Astrakhan to survey avenues of increasing commercial, industrial and mineral cooperation.

Iran has been facing a huge trade deficit with Russia since 2015, before which bilateral trade stood at around $2 billion, with Iran’s exports accounting for half of the sum.

In 2015 and 2016, Iran exported between $400-500 million worth of goods to Russia  and its imports reached $1.5-1.6 billion in return.

Iran mainly exports agricultural products, including dairy, livestock and horticultural products, cans and conserves such as pickles and jams, chocolate and biscuit, flower and petrochemical products to Russia and imports wood, machinery, agro machinery, spare parts, paper (reexported from Finland and Sweden), iron and reinforcement bars (reexported from Belarus) and sugar (reexported from Cuba) in  return.