Tehran, Iran, July 1
Trend:
Iran is hoping to increase the volume of its exports after Europeans made Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges (INSTEX) operational.
Ali Shariati, Head of Food Industries Group in Iran Chamber of Commerce, discussed the INSTEX operations in an interview with Trend.
"We hope to increase trade with Europe with this new trade mechanism; the operation of INSTEX in the current situation is like a pass for walking in the street during martial law," he said.
"Businessmen in lower ranks involved in exports in agriculture and food industries are not affected by sanctions," he said. "The sanctions are more like a psychological war for us, while operating INSTEX defeated the psychological war."
"The mechanism should operate in oil sector, too," he added. "At the moment, oil is not included in the system, while Europeans want to allocate credit to the mechanism. If there is a talk of oil money, the US will sanction it. The credit for this mechanism indicates that there is still ambiguity."
The EU has recently announced the Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges (INSTEX) has become operational and available for transaction with Iran.
"In the first month of current Iranian year (started March 21, 2019), the volume of export of agriculture and food products reached 517,000 tons valued at $355 million, which comprises 6.1 percent weight and 14 percent value of country's general non-oil exports," he said referring to the latest statistics of imports and exports of agriculture products.
"The value of exports in the first month of current year has 18.3 percent drop comparing to same time in last Iranian year (started March 21, 2018) and 9.4 percent fall comparing to same period in past six years," he noted. "The major exported agriculture products were vegetables valued at $141.9 million that shared 40 percent of whole exports," he indicated.
In his words, other exports products include various types of fruits valued at $59.8 million (16.8 percent), milk and dairy products worth $36.24 million (10.2 percent), fruit juice and compote valued at $16.8 million (4.7 percent), saffron worth $11.2 million (3.2 percent) and fish and shrimp valued at $11 million (3 percent).
"In June, a major share of agriculture and food products were exported to Iraq, Afghanistan, Russia, Pakistan, UAE, Turkey, Kuwait, India, Qatar and Azerbaijan comprising 90.7 percent value of the agriculture and food products' export," he said.
"The volume of agriculture and food products imported during the first month of current Iranian year reached 1.555 million tons valued $934 million," he added. "Imports from India amounted to $229 million, Turkey - to $175 million, the Netherlands - to $122 million, UAE - to $67 million, UK - to $59 million, Singapore - to $49.9 million, Russia - to $46 million, Pakistan - $28 million, Germany - $26 million, Brazil - $14 million and Switzerland - $10 million, which comprised 88 percent of Iran's imports."