Azerbaijan, Baku, Jan.25 / Trend F.Milad /
Iran has exported over 34.5 billion dollars' worth of non-oil goods in the first 10 months of the current Iranian calendar year which began March 20, 2012, showing a 2.5 per cent decrease compared to the same period previous year.
Iran also imported 43.7 billion dollars' worth of goods in the aforementioned period marking an overall trade value of 78.2 billion dollars, the ISNA News Agency reported.
Iran imports also faced a 12.5 per cent decrease in comparison with the same time last year.
Iran's overall trade volume in the first nine months of the year had stood at 73 billion dollars. Exports accounted for 32 billion dollars of the aforementioned amount.
Iraq, China, the United Arab Emirates, Afghanistan and India were the top importers of Iranian goods during the period, while the United Arab Emirates, China, Turkey, South Korea and Switzerland were the leading exporters of goods to Iran.
The head of the Central Bank of Iran said last week that Iran's exports have doubled in the past few months.
On the contrary, imports have faced sharp decrease due to the high price of foreign currencies, the IRNA News Agency quoted Mahmoud Bahmani as saying.
He went on to note that the government has asked Iranian businessmen to increase their trade volume with certain countries where Iran has considerable foreign currency reserves.
According to the Director of Iranian Customs Administration Abbas Memarnejad, the country is currently conducting trade with 151 countries.
He referred to liquefied propane, urea, methanol and cement as the major exported goods and iron and steel ingots, wheat, and soy meal as the main imported ones.
Iran plans to export 51 million dollars' worth of non-oil goods and technical and engineering services by the end of current year (March 19).
Iran exported $43.7 billion worth of non-oil goods last year and imported $61.8 billion worth of goods to hit the unprecedented mark of $105 billion in annual trade
Iran also earned four million dollars last year by exporting technical and engineering services to over 60 countries.
At the beginning of 2012, the United States and European Union imposed new sanctions on Iran's oil and financial sectors with the goal of preventing other countries from purchasing Iranian oil and conducting transactions with the Iranian Central Bank.
U.S. sanctions entered into force on June 28, whilst EU bans on Iranian oil imports came into force on July 1.
In October, the EU approved another major package of economic sanctions on Iran.