TEHRAN, Iran, Dec.30
Trend:
Iran's export to Iraq in eight months of the current Iranian year (started March 20, 2020) was $5.3 billion that indicate $650 million worth of export per month, said a board member of Iran and Iraq Joint Chamber of Commerce.
"Iran's average monthly export to Iraq in last Iranian year was $750 million the statistic indicates the country's export to Iraq in current Iranian year was 8 percent less than last year that is expected to be compensated in coming months," Hamid Hosseini told Trend in an interview.
"It was expected that due to devaluation of national currency and increase of commodity prices Iran's export to Iraq would increase but Iraq's capacity to purchase commodities has declined. The price of oil has declined and Iraq's oil revenues reduced as well, therefore Iraq has less capacity for foreign trade. Many reconstruction projects have been shut down and affected Iran's export and it is expected that the country's export to Iraq would be the same as last Iranian year which was $9 billion," he said.
Hosseini went on to say that this year due to the coronavirus outbreak the borders were closed and there were no visiting tourists from Iraq to Iran. The number of Iraqi tourists that annually visited Iran was 2.5 million people.
"While Iran had $9 billion direct export to Iraq, it had around $3 billion export of additional services per year that was from tourism and health tourism and electricity export each year that would make around $13 billion but this year there was no additional export," he noted.
Iran annually exports between $700 to $800 million power to Iraq which is mostly done via public companies, Iran's Ministry of Energy has recently issued a permit for the private sector and especially renewable energy companies to export electricity to Iraq but the private sector power export to Iraq has yet to start.
Iran's annual import from Iraq is $50 million however Iraq had surplus wheat and barley in the current year due to heavy rainfall and the country has expressed readiness to export these agricultural items to Iran.