Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 26
By Umid Niayesh - Trend:
Over 85 percent of the cell phones which are being sold in the Iranian market are smuggled, Abdolmajid Ejtehadi, director general of Ombudsman Organization's Office for Combating Smuggling of Goods and Foreign Exchange said.
Implementing wrong policies on cell phone imports' tariff has lead to serious increase in cell phone smuggling into the country, Ejtehadi said, the official IRNA news agency reported Jan. 26.
He also said that Iranians are not interested in buying home-made cell phones because of, low quality.
Head of Iran's State Union of Audio-Video Equipment and Cell Phone Sellers, Ebrahim Dorosti said last September that cell phones accounted for $2 billion of the total $20 billion of smuggled goods into Iran in the previous Iranian calendar year (which ended on March 20, 2014).
He put the figure of smuggled cell phones in the market at 75 percent.
Abbas Hashemi, an official with the Islamic Republic's Ministry of Industries, Mines and Trade said that the domestic cell phone output can cover 10-15 percent of the country's demands, confirming that the domestic brands are not capable of competing with famous global phone-makers.
Hashemi said that the Iranian administration decreased cell phone imports' tariff from 25 percent to 6 percent in 2013 to prevent cell phone smuggling into the country, adding it has not been successful so far.
According to Iran Customs Administration's reports, the country's legal import of cell phones in the previous Iranian fiscal year was worth around $183 million. The figure stood at $170 million in the Iranian calendar year of 1391 (which ended on March 20, 2013).
Edited by CN