Italy Tops Iran’s Trade Partners in Europe

The latest Eurostat data shared with Financial Tribune show Italy was Iran's biggest trade partner in the European Union during the nine months ending September 2017, with bilateral trade reaching €3.45 billion.

Eurostat is the Directorate-General of the European Commission located in Luxembourg. Its main responsibilities are to provide statistical information to European Union institutions and promote the harmonization of statistical methods across its member states and candidates for accession as well as among the European Free Trade Association countries.

The data also indicate that Italy tops the list of Iran’s biggest export destinations in the EU, as it imported €2.2 billion worth of Iranian commodities during the period.

France was Iran's second biggest trade partner in the EU, as the two countries exchanged €2.93 billion worth of goods during the nine months. Exports from Iran accounted for €1.87 billion of the total.

Germany was next with €2.41 billion worth of trade with Iran. The European country was, in fact, the biggest European exporter to Iran during the period under review, shipping €2.12 billion worth of goods.

Iran’s fourth biggest trade partner in the EU was Spain. Bilateral trade stood at $1.234 billion with Iran's exports accounting for $957.9 million.

The Netherlands followed with €1.15 billion worth of trade with the Islamic Republic. Iran exported nearly €597.92 million worth of goods to this country and imported close to €553.72 million in return.

Close to €14.78 billion worth of commodities were exchanged between Iran and all European Union states during the nine months, about 1.6 times as much as the figure registered in last year's corresponding period. Iran’s exports to the 28 European countries stood at €7.3 billion, registering a more than twofold rise year-on-year. Iran's imports from the European bloc amounted to €7.5 billion, which is 1.3 times as much as last year’s similar period.

European traders and businesses have been at the forefront of resuming ties with Iran after it signed a nuclear deal with world powers in 2015, which led to the removal of nuclear-related sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

> Top Traded Commodities

Iran's main exported commodities to the European Union include mineral fuels, mineral oils and products of their distillation, bituminous substances and mineral waxes.

The latest available data released by Eurostat show Iran exported a total of more than €5.74 billion worth of the above commodities to the EU states during the eight months ending August.

Other major exports include edible fruit, nuts and zest of citrus fruits (€161.1), iron and steel (€145.1 million), plastics and plastic products (€111 million) and coffee, tea, coffee-mate and spices (€41.6 million).

Iran’s main imported products from the European countries during the same eight-month period included nuclear reactors, boilers, machinery and mechanical appliances and spare parts, worth a total of more than €1.9 billion.

Other major imports included electric machinery and equipment, television image and sound recorders plus accessories (€547.2 million), vehicles other than railroad or tramway rolling-stock plus parts and accessories (€542.1 million), optical, photographic, cinematographic, measuring, checking, precision, medical or surgical instruments and their parts (€520.7 million) and pharmaceutical products (€503 million).