Tehran, Iran, Aug. 10
By Mehdi Sepahvand – Trend:
Iran has set a deadline of six months for foreign cell phone companies to open agencies in the country if they want to go on selling their products in its market.
The measure comes as a new bid of the government to fight cell phone smuggling into the country, Mehr news agency reported Aug. 10.
Unofficial statistics say the Iranian cell phone market is worth $2 billion, but over 90 percent of the products are smuggled.
Previous administrations increased cell phone import tariffs from 4 to 60 percent, intending to help domestic products. But the move caused a great turn to smuggling cell phones into the country.
Last year, the current government reduced the tariff to 6 percent. It is also planning to provide service only to legally imported cell phones starting in the near future.
But the latest decision comes at a time when Iran is having problem with certain brands opening branches in the country.
While the American-made Apple has a lot of fans in Iran, the Iranian government has a record of banning American brands under the justification that they “bring a sense of domination by certain powers” – remarks made by Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli last year.