By Dalga Khatinoglu
While Russia's revenues from oil exports have been halved due to declining oil price and the economic crisis inside the country is deteriorating, Moscow leapt to increase cereals export to Iran.
The monthly reports of Iran's Anzali port, the main gate for importing Russian commodities indicate a soaring rise in imports, as well as a resumption of petroleum products' transmission operations.
During last month (October 23 to November 23), Iran's wheat imports through Anzali port increased by 3 times to 43,130 tons compared to the same month last year. The country also imported 1,215 tons of barley, while the figure for the same period in last year was zero.
The statistics of Anzali port also indicate that some 14,877 tons of oily products were discharged in port during last month, but didn't put this in the "imports list" specifically.
Iran didn't imported any oil products from Russia during the same month last year.
The statistics indicate that the volume of loading/discharge in Anzali port increased from 1.42 million metric tons to 1.8 million metric tons during the last eight months, indicating a 26.2 percent increase. the traffic of entered ships also rose from 503 to 534.
Now, Andrey Luganskiy, Russia's trade representative in Tehran says that Russia produces 110 million metric tons of cereals and plans to boost exports to Iran until the end of current year.
He said that Iran's ports are located in shallow waters and the entering of heavy ships there is impossible, but Russia can transit the cereals to Iran via a Black Sea route.
The detailed statistics released by Iran Custom Administration indicates that Iran's exports to Russia during last eight months reached $200 million- almost unchanged- while imported $500 million worth of commodities from Russia showed a 9 percent increase. However, the detailed custom statistics reflect that Iran increased export to Russia 219.4 percent, while imports declined by 25 percent during the last month.
Iran-Russia's trade turnover before imposed sanctions on Iran in mid-2012 was about $2.3 billion annually, but declined to around $1.06 billion during the last year.
Wheat, rice, soybean meal as well as corn place first, second, forth and fifth most valuable commodities list which Iran imported over the last eight months. The value of these goods was about $4 billion, while the country's total imports during the last eight months were $34 billion.
Both of Russia and Iran are suffering from western sanctions, a drop in national currency value and declining oil prices.
Iran's national currency, the rial, lost its value by 3 times during last three years, while the Russian ruble has lost 50 percent of its value versus the US dollar since the beginning of 2014.
While oil exports share about 13 percent of both countries' GDP, their budgets depend about 50 percent on oil export revenues. The price of oil has has halved during the last four months to below $60 a barrel.
Dalga Khatinoglu is an expert on Iran's energy sector, head of Trend Agency's Iran news service
Follow him on @dalgakhatinoglu
Edited by CN