Tehran, Iran, Oct. 7
By Mehdi Sepahvand -- Trend:
Head of Iran Communication Equipment Association Qolamhossein Karimi said the association is in talks with the Ministry of Industry to reduce import tariffs on cell phones by 2 percent.
He added one of the major measures underway at the association is to remove the monopoly of certain brands over Iran's cell phone market, Tasnim news agency reported Oct. 7.
"One of the other important plans is to get value added tax from end users. This is taken from the producer. Hence, a high some used to be taken from the user. But in the new form, 9 percent of the value added tax will be taken only from the end user," he said.
He also said there are a lot of smuggled cell phones in Iran and the country plans to reduce the number of smuggled phones to zero.
Statistics show that about 85 percent of the cell phones in the Iranian market are smuggled.
Iran needs 10 million cell phones a year, while the legal import of the goods is one to one and a half million a year.
Recently Iran said its network operators are going to recognize and provide service only cell phones that have been legally registered as a bid to fight the import of illegal cell phones.
Cell phone smuggling damages Iran's revenues as much as 6 trillion rials (29950 rials making 1 USD) per year.
Edited by CN