Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 22
By Khaid Kazimov - Trend:
Vice President of Iran's Export Confederation Mohammad Lahouti has said that the country's exports cost 25 percent more than usual because of international sanctions, Fars news agency reported Feb. 22.
"Since a few years ago, most of our exports have been limited to 5 countries. We tend to lose the market if there's even a small problem. We have not sent expert trade negotiators to countries with good markets as we must have," he said, elaborating on the reasons why export is not in a good state in Iran.
In 2014, Iran had the highest positive trade balance with Iraq ($5.569 billion), Afghanistan ($2.21 billion), Turkmenistan ($681million), Pakistan ($588 million) and Egypt ($495 million).
The five countries shared 79.28 percent of the Islamic Republic's positive trade balance.
Based on Iran's Customs administration's statistics, the five countries imported 70 percent of Iran's total non-oil exports in terms of value in the first seven months of the current year.
Lahouti noted that since production is costing more, Iranian production companies have suffered drastic declines in exporting their products. He further added that sanctions on the country's banking system have also made transactions in the production, import, and export sectors difficult, which further damages export rates.