Baku, Azerbaijan, May 2
By Umid Niayesh - Trend:
Iran exported $165 million worth of software during the first eleven months of last fiscal year (March 20, 2014-Feb. 20, 2015), according to the Union of Iranian Software Exporters.
The Iranian ministry of Communications and Information Technology estimates that software exports share only 0.7 percent of the country's GDP, meanwhile it was projected that the figure reach two percent by the end of the Islamic Republic's Fifth Economic Development Plan 2010-2015.
A report by the Iranian parliament Research Center suggests that the share of software exports from total industrial exports was in decline in recent years, Iran's ISNA news agency reported May 2.
The figure stood at 1.5 percent in 2005, but declined to 0.73 percent in 2013 and stood at some 0.56 percent in 2014.
The value of Iran's software exports stood at $90 million during the Iranian fiscal year of 1391 (ended on March 21, 2013) and $100 million in the preceding year, according to the Union of Iranian Software Exporters.
However governmental statistics suggest that Iran exported $400 million worth of software during the fiscal year of 1392 (ended on March 21, 2014), independent experts consider that the figure is not true.
"We believe that the real value is lower than that," Mohammad Reza Talaei, head of the Union of Iranian Software Exporters said Feb. 18.
There are various obstacles in the way of software exporters, he said, adding the official figure for software exports should not be considered as accurate.
The UAE was the main market of Iran's exported software, while Saudi Arabia shared the least amount of Iran's software exports according to the Union of Iranian Software Exporters.
The value of Iran's software market stood at $600 million in 2008, equal to 10 percent of country's IT sector or 0.22 percent of the GDP.
Global software trade stood at $300 billion in 2008, with the US share estimated at 42 percent of that amount. The figure stood at $457 billion in 2013.
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