Azerbaijan, Baku, Sep.28 /Trend R.Zamanov/
The Trade Promotion Organization of Iran plans to lift any ban on the imports and exports by the end of the current Iranian calendar year (March 20, 2014), Director of TPOI Hamid Safdel said on Saturday.
"Lifting the ban on exports will improve the market, as well as encouraging the manufacturers to invest more in producing high-quality goods," the ISNA News Agency quoted Safdel as saying.
"The previous administration's decisions had resulted in repeated fluctuations in price of foreign currencies at the free market, but currently the market is stable," he added.
Deputy Director of the Trade Promotion Organization of Iran, Kioumars Fathollah Kermanshahi said on September 20 that currently the limitations on exports only affects 17 items, the ISNA News Agency reported.
"If the manufacturers buy the raw materials at the free market without receiving foreign currencies from the government, there will be no need to put limitations on their exports," he said.
"We can even lift the ban on exports of some petrochemical products," Fatollah Kermanshahi added.
He went on to note that Iran's non-oil exports have faced 8 per cent decrease in the current year, while the country's imports have also decreased by 26 percent.
Kermanshahi said on September 4 that Iran's foreign trade stood at around $31.5 billion in the first five months of the current year, which started March 21.
"The country's exports accounted for $15.2 billion of the mentioned amount, which is 8 percent less than the same period of time previous year," the ISNA News Agency quoted Fathollah Kermanshahi as saying.
"Iran's imports also faced 26 percent decrease in the mentioned period," he said.
"The sharp fall in raw materials imports has resulted in such a decrease in the country's total foreign trade," Fathollah Kermanshahi added.
He went on to note that Iran's priority in allocating forex to imports should be the production units' needed raw materials," he said.