BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 4. A total of 5.9 million tons of essential goods worth more than $4.5 billion were imported to Iran, during the first three months of the current Iranian year (March 21 through June 21, 2022), Deputy Director of Islamic Republic of Iran Customs Administration (IRICA) Foroud Asgari said, Trend reports citing the administration.
The deputy director noted that in total, 25 types of essential goods were imported to the country within the mentioned period.
Asgari added that essential goods are imported to Iran under both official exchange rate ($1=42,000) and NIMA exchange rate (the exchange rate created for exporters to sell a portion of their export earnings to banks).
According to him, wheat, barley, corn, cooking oil, oilseeds, compressed soybeans, pharmaceuticals and medical supplies are imported to the country under official exchange rate.
“Thus, 1.7 million tons of wheat worth about $719 million, 1.7 million tons of corn worth about $676 million, 296,000 tons of cooking oil worth $509 million, and 644,000 tons of oilseeds worth $504 million were imported to Iran under the official exchange rate in 3 months,” Asgari said.
At the same time, 277,000 tons of compressed soybeans worth $161 million, 256,000 tons of barley worth $94.1 million, 4,100 tons of pharmaceuticals and medical supplies worth $634 million were imported to the country under the official exchange rate over three months, the deputy stressed.
Asgari also pointed out that 583,000 tons of rice worth $559 million, 110,000 tons of raw sugar worth $57.9 million, about 8,000 tons of red meat worth $36.2 million, and 19,900 tons of chicken worth $35.8 million were imported to Iran under the NIMA exchange rate.
The Central Bank of Iran (CBI) has created a NIMA system in 2018 for exporters to sell a portion of their export earnings to banks to eliminate the shortage of foreign currency in the country for various reasons (sanctions, economic situation, etc.). In this system, exporters who earned more than 1 million euros from export a year must sell a portion of their export earnings to banks at the NIMA rate. Later, banks started to sell foreign currency to importers for the import of several products at this rate.
The Central Bank of Iran has not imposed rules on exporters that earned from export less than 1 million euros a year. Those with total exports of one to three million euros per year are required to offer 50 percent of their received foreign exchange from the government through the NIMA system.
The exporters with annual exports of three to 10 million euros are obliged to offer 70 percent. Those with exports of above 10 million euros per year must offer 90 percent of the received foreign exchange at NIMA.
NIMA is a system intended for the sale of a certain percentage of the foreign currency gained from export. The price of 1 euro in this system is 268,101 rials, and the price of $1 is 257,512 rials.
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