Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 23
By Fatih Karimov– Trend:
Chinese car parts made 47 percent of Iran’s total car part imports during the first half of the current fiscal year (March 20-Sept. 22), Farhad Ehteshamzadeh, the head of Iran's Automobile Importers Association (IAIA), said.
The Islamic Republic imported $1.438 billion worth of car parts (80 percent increase, 6 percent of total imports’ value) in the six-month period, which is 21 percent more than the imported cars in terms of value, Ehteshamzadeh said, the IAIA said in a message.
Some Iranian auto industry experts believe that numerous obstacles to the production of spare parts have caused Iranian manufactures to turn to China’s low-quality products.
Earlier Akbar Mirza-Hosseini, vice-chairman of the board of directors at Iran's Rakhsh Khodro Diesel Company, told Trend that a large group of Iranian producers simply import Chinese auto parts, repackage and distribute them under Iranian brands.
He added that some Iranian car makers have established offices in China to directly import auto parts.
France was the second origin of Iran’s imported car parts after China with a 20 percent share from imports.
South Korea (16 percent), Japan (5 percent), Romania (4 percent) and Turkey (4 percent) were other top car parts’ exporters to Iran in the first half of current fiscal year, Ehteshamzadeh said.
Over 684,300 cars were produced in Iran during the first half of current Iranian fiscal year), 17.9 percent more year-on-year.
Iranian automakers manufactured some 1.35 million cars in the last Iranian fiscal year (ended March 20, 2017).