Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan.7
By Fatih Karimov - Trend: The Society for Consumer Rights Protection in Iran has urged domestic carmakers to lower prices, the Mehr News Agency reported on Jan. 7.
In a statement, the society has called carmakers to cut prices by 20 percent considering that the free market dollar has declined from 36,000 rials to 26,500 rials.
The Society for Consumer Rights Protection is a public-based and non-governmental entity.
Based on the statement, prices of domestically-made popular cars in Iran should be decreased between $1600 and $3200.
Iran produced 502,273 cars in the first three quarters of the current Iranian calendar year, which started on March 21, the ISNA News Agency reported on Jan. 4.
Some 426,674 sedan cars, 70,069 pickup trucks, 5,213 trucks, 253 buses, and 64 minibuses were produced in the country in the mentioned period.
Iran produced 76,916 cars in the ninth calendar month of the current Iranian calendar year (November 23 - December 22).
Iran exported 4,824 sedans during the first nine months of the current solar year (starting on March 21) which indicates an 88.97 percent decrease compared to the same period of last year.
The value of the exported cars was around $33 million, which is 87.24 percent less than in the same period of last year, according to the Iranian Custom Administration's latest monthly report released on Dec. 28. The average car price was $6,794, which indicates a 15.72 percent increase this year.
Iran has exported 2542, 1147 and 612 sedan cars toIraq, Azerbaijan and Egypt respectively during the period.
Iran's automobile output faced a 40 per cent decrease in 2012. The country was Asia's 5th largest car manufacturer in 2011, with a total output of 1,648,505.
Increasing prices of raw materials and foreign currencies are the main problems that the car manufacturers are facing.