Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 25
By Fatih Karimov– Trend:
The Islamic Republic forced to gradually revise its non-oil export target after the international sanctions against Tehran intensified in 2012.
The target for the fiscal year falling to March, 2012-2013(1391) was set at $51 billion (excluding gas condensates), which was materialized by 64 percent.
In the following year (2013-2014), when the target was revised to $41 billion, the country’s non-oil exports (excluding condensates) reached $31 billion, equal to 77 percent of the targeted plan.
The Iranian administration decreased the target to $40 billion (excluding condensates) and $35 billion (excluding condensates) in succeeding fiscal years( 2014-2015 and 2015-2016), with a 90 percent and 102 percent realization rate.
After the international sanctions against Tehran removed in 2016, the Iranian administration decided to improve the non-oil export target to $50 billion (including gas condensate) in the fiscal year to March 2017, meanwhile the target materialized by 88 percent.
The Islamic Republic has increased its export target by $3 billion for the current fiscal year (March 20, 2017-2018) to $53 billion, despite the fact that the country’s non-oil exports stood at $43.93 billion in the one-year period to March 2017.
The latest official statistics indicate that Iran has exported $24.7 billion worth of non-oil goods (including gas condensates) during the first seven months of the current fiscal year (March 20-Oct. 22), which is equal to 80 percent of targeted figure for the period ($30.917 billion).
Iran’s non-oil exports registered a fall by 2.2 percent in terms of value, year-on-year during the 7-month period, meanwhile the figure in the last fiscal year, the first year after removal of the international sanctions witnessed a growth by 3.5 percent thanks to huge increase in exports of minerals (41 percent) and gas condensates (56.4 percent).
Iran’s annual target of $53 billion worth of non-oil exports has materialized by 46 percent during the first seven months of the current fiscal year, according to a report from the Islamic Republic’s Trade Promotion Organization (TPOI).
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 7-month period.
During the period, the country had exported $4.115 billion worth of condensate (2.4 percent less, year on year).
Liquefied propane (worth $809 million, 15 percent increase), film grade polyethylene (worth $750 million, 43.5 percent increase), gasoline excluded light oils and products (worth $725 million, 25 percent fall), methanol (worth $661 million, 36 percent increase), iron ore(worth $581 million, 56 percent increase), liquefied butane ($511 million, 9.6 percent increase), semi-completed iron and steel products (worth $500 million, 670 percent increase) and ethylene glycol($444 million, 72.3 percent year-on-year increase) where other top exported goods in the 7-month period (March 20-Oct. 22).
As seen all of Iran’s top exports are raw materials or semi-processed oil and mineral products.
Iran’s trade balance during the 7-month period witnessed a fall by 397 percent and became negative (-$3.107 billion), after experiencing a positive balance previous year.