Trade between Iran and the U.S. amounted to $173 million in the first six months of 2009, showing a 38 percent increase compared to the same period the year before.
Fars news agency quoted the U.S. Census Bureau that in the first half of this year there has been a 115 percent increase in U.S. exports to Iran.
In the first half of 2008 over $65 million worth of U.S. goods was exported to Iran. This figure has reached $140 million in the same period of 2009.
Analysts believe that the economic crisis and the decrease in demand for American products has forced exporters to explore new markets and prompted the U.S. government to be lenient toward firms exporting products to countries such as Iran.
Meanwhile the U.S. imports from Iran amounted to $33 million in the first half of 2009 showing a 45 percent decrease in comparison to the same period in the previous year.
Worth mentioning is that the increase in the Iran-U.S. trade happened despite the American sanctions against Iran.