BAKU, Azerbaijan, Feb.18
Trend:
Iran's trade capacity is twice more than its current situation, in order to develop trade we should pay attention to import as well as export, said former Minister of Industry, Mine and Trade.
"Import of capital commodities and basic materials would lead to country's development but importing luxury and consumption goods is destruction action, the import should support production," said Mehdi Ghazanfari, Trend reports citing Mehr News Agency.
"In sanction situation one of the effective cooperation in protecting jobs is export, regional countries create many opportunities that could be used, by removing obstacles in customs regulation, and production we can double Iran's regional trade," he said.
Ghazanfari went on to say Iran's trade statistics with neighboring countries and the region indicate that the country has not fully used the capacities. Iran's trade with Pakistan was $500 million and with Iraq was $6 billion in 2019, while its trade with Afghanistan was $1.2 billion a result Iran has only supplied between 10 to 20 percent of the region's need.
"Iran's export to neighbor countries has increased from 2013 to 2019 compared to trade with other countries. Iran has exported $23 billion to neighboring countries in 2017 and about the same volume to trans regional countries that made a total of $46 billion. The country's import from neighboring countries was less than other countries at this time, Iran's import from neighbors was $54 billion in 2014 but it declined in next years to $43 billion that indicate the trade volume has been reduced," he noted.