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Over $1 billion worth of smuggled goods seized in Iran during last Iranian calendar year

Business Materials 16 April 2013 17:27 (UTC +04:00)

Azerbaijan, Baku, Apr.16/ Trend, G. Mehdi/

More than 10 trillion Rials (about $815 million) worth of smuggled goods were seized in Iran in the last Iranian calendar year, which ended on March 20, IRNA reported.

Around 80,000 cases of smuggling were registered at customs nationwide.

The value of the seized goods showed a 30 percent increase compared to the Iranian year which ended in March 2012.

In October 2012, the Iranian Customs Administration Director Abbas Memarnejad said that smuggling is not confined to fuels. It also includes home appliances and foreign currency.

The Industry, Mine, and Trade Minister Mehdi Ghazanfari announced that some $12 billion worth of luxury goods are legally imported each year.

Annually, around $20 billion worth of goods have been smuggled into the country in recent years. The Iranian government has claimed that the smuggled goods will reduce to $14 billion in the current year.

According to analysts, if Iran succeeds in stopping legal imports of luxury goods, it will face two serious problems. The first will be psychological effects in the market and the sharp rise in prices of some of the goods such as computers, cell phones, and clothing, which have import bans, and the second will be a rise in the smuggling such goods.

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