Azerbaijan, Baku, Dec. 16/ Trend G.Mehdi/
Over 21.9 billion cigarettes were smuggled into Iran during the past Iranian calendar year, which ended on March 19, ISNA cited the latest statistics.
It is estimated that more than seven billion cigarettes are legally imported into Iran in the first eight months of the current year.
According to the managing director of the Iranian Tobacco Company, some 46 billion cigarettes are projected to be produced in the country by the end of the current year.
Last year, nearly 63.8 million cigarettes were smoked in Iran.
On October 24, Iranian Customs Administration Director Abbas Memarnejad said that the goods worth some 7 trillion rials (about $570 million) have been smuggled into and out of Iran in the first half of the current Iranian calendar year, which began on March 20.
Around 12,000 cases of smuggling have been registered at customs nationwide, he added.
The smuggling is not confined to fuels, he said, adding that it also includes home appliance and foreign currency.
The irregular importation of some unnecessary goods has damaged the national economy, Anti-Drug Headquarters Secretary General Fada-Hossein Maleki said. "Imports have increased by 12 percent in weight but declined by 16 percent in value. This issue shows that unnecessary goods have been imported in large scale," he noted.
On October 5, MP Alireza Monadi-Sepidan told the Fars News Agency that imports should be regulated and illegal imports of up to $30 billion, which have dented the domestic production, should be curbed.
According to General Inspection Organization's director Mostafa Pourmohammadi, the smuggled goods into the country amounted to around $20 billion in the Iranian year which ended in March 2011. The figure declined by $6 billion during the year up to March 2012.