Azerbaijan, Baku, May 18/ Trend F.Milad/
Iran is drafting a national plan to facilitate foreign trade, the deputy director of the Trade Promotion Organisation of Iran stated.
Electronic trade is now one of the main methods of multilateral transactions in the world, Kiyumars Fathollah Kermanshahi told the Mehr News Agency, adding that Iran has embarked on preparing a national comprehensive plan in this regard.
Iran has scaled up its trade with 160 countries in the past calendar year which ended on March 19, despite being embattled with global economic sanctions, the head of the Customs Administration said in April.
Abbas Memarnejad said the non-oil trade balance decreased to $17.9 billion last year from $30.5 billion the year before. He added that exports rose by 28 per cent year on year, while imports fell by four per cent.
Iran exported $43.7 billion worth of non-oil goods last year and imported $61.8 billion worth of goods, to hit an unprecedented level of $105 billion in annual trade.
On March 16, Trade Promotion Organisation director Hamid Safdel said Iran's main non-oil exports were gas condensates, petrochemical products and engineering services, amounting to $9 billion, $13 billion, and $4 billion respectively.
Other exports, including carpets, handicrafts and agricultural goods such as nuts, were valued at around $17 billion.
First Vice-President Mohammad-Reza Rahimi announced in January that Iran's overall non-oil trade balance is anticipated to reach zero in the next Iranian calendar year.
China, the UAE, and Iraq were respectively the main destinations for the Iranian goods while the UAE, China and South Korea (in that order), were the main exporters to Iran during the last calendar year.