Tehran, Iran, Sept. 8
By Milad Fashtami - Trend:
Head of Iran's State Union of Audio-Video Equipment and Cell Phone Sellers Ebrahim Dorosti said on September 8 that some 75 percent of the cell phones which are being sold in the Iranian market are smuggled.
He went on to note that cell phones accounted for only $2 billion of the total $20 billion of smuggled goods in the previous year (which ended on March 20), Iran's ISNA News Agency reported.
"We need to omit the cell phone imports' tariff in order to take control over the market," Dorosti, who is also the deputy director of Iran's Chamber of Trade Unions, added.
According to Iran Customs Administration's reports, the country's legal imports of cell phones in the previous year were around $183 million.
The figure stood at $170 million in the Iranian calendar year of 1391 (which ended on March 20, 2013).
But according to the Iran Customs Administration's latest report, the country's legal imports of cell phones in the first five months of the current Iranian calendar year (which stated on March 21) stood at $296 million.
The figure is ten times more than previous year's figure of $28 million.
It is not still clear that an increase in legal cell phone imports means a decrease in smuggling or is just due to a relief from sanctions.
Head of Iran's SIM Card and Cell Phone Sellers Union Afshar Foroutan Larijani said in June that 7 years ago the cell phone imports' tariff dropped to 4 percent, which resulted in a sharp decrease in smuggling. But during the previous administration, the figure rose to 60 percent and gradually eased to 25 and 10 percent, ISNA reported.
According to Ebrahim Dorosti, if the government decides to drop the import tariff, then the importers have to pay only for the added-value tax. He believes increasing the import tariff will only result the smuggling to boost.
Smuggling accounts for nearly one-third of Iran's total imports.
According to ISNA, Ali Fazeli, the head of Iran's Chamber of Trade Unions said earlier that some $22 billion worth of goods have been smuggled into Iran in the previous calendar year. The figure accounts for 30 percent of the country's total $73 billion worth of imports in the mentioned period.