Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 20
By Fatih Karimov– Trend:
Iran exported $17.193 billion of non-oil goods (including gas condensates) during the first five months of the current fiscal year (March 20-Aug. 22), which is equal to 78 percent of targeted figure for the period ($22.83 billion).
Iran’s non-oil exports registered a fall by 5 percent in terms of value, year-on-year.
Iran’s annual target of $53 billion worth of non-oil exports has materialized by 32 percent during the first five months of the current fiscal year, according to a report from the Islamic Republic’s Trade Promotion Organization (TPOI).
The Islamic Republic increased its export target by $3 billion for this year from $50 billion in the last fiscal year (ended March 20, 2017), despite the fact that the country’s non-oil exports materialized by 88 percent and stood at $43.93 in the one-year period.
Meanwhile Kamal Seyyed, the chairman of Export Guarantee Fund of Iran (EGFI) said last week that Iran has the capacity to boost its annual exports to $60 billion thus reducing dependence on petrodollars.
According to Seyyed Ali, Iran’s energy and mining reserves are advantages which can help increase exports.
A look at the list of Iran’s top exports indicates that raw materials share the dominant part of Iran’s non-oil export basket. Gas condensates, propane, butane and some other raw petroleum products - which Iran puts in the non-oil exports basket- made the country’s top exported goods during the 5-month period.
During the period, the country had exported $2.92 billion worth of condensate (5.39 percent less, YOY).
Film grade polyethylene (worth $652 million, 73 percent more), liquefied propane (worth $576 million, 2 percent more), gasoline excluded light oils and products (worth $555 million), methanol (worth $498 million, 37 percent increase), semi-completed iron and steel products(worth $412 million, 678 percent rise), iron ore(worth $395 million, 40 percent increase) and liquefied butane($392 million, 9 percent up) where other top exported goods in the 5-month period (March 20-Aug. 22).
Iran’s trade balance during the 5-month period witnessed a fall by 261 percent and became negative (-$2.249 billion), after experiencing a positive balance previous year.