Iran has witnessed a 96% growth (in weight terms) in transit of goods via the country’s borders over the first four months of the current Iranian calendar year (March 21-July 22), according to a senior official with the country’s customs office (IRICA).
Arezoo Ghanioun, the deputy head of IRICA Department for Statistics and Information Processing, said that 10 Iranian customs gateways have accounted for 92% of the country’s total growth in foreign transit of goods.
She said that some 3.447 million tons of goods were transited via these 10 gateways in the four-month period showing a 122% growth compared to 1.548 million tons in last year’s corresponding period.
Shahid Rajaei Special Economic Zone reached 1.197 million tons of transit this year up 46% from the similar period last year’s 819,000 tons to rank first among the Iranian customs gateways, the official said.
She added that Bashmaq, Sarakhs, and Bazargan border crossings ranked second to fourth respectively following Shahid Rajaei Special Economic Zone.
IRICA chief Mehdi Mirashrafi released statistics about Iran’s foreign trade over the first four months of the current Iranian calendar year earlier this month.
He said that China was the main destination for Iranian products during the mentioned period (with nearly 10 million tons of imports from the country valued at $4.3 billion), followed by Iraq, UAE, Turkey and Afghanistan as other top importers of Iranian products ranking second to fifth respectively.
Iran also imported some 12.5 million tons of commodities worth $14.5 billion in the period under review, posting 5% growth in terms of weight and 32% increase in terms of value, the official said.
He noted that basic commodities accounted for some 9.4 million tons of Iran’s total 12.5 million tons of imports.
The official said that the UAE was the number one exporter to Iran during the four-month period with 4 million tons of shipments worth $4.7 billion.
China, Turkey, Germany and Switzerland ranked as the second to fifth exporters to Iran following the UAE, with $3.1 billion, $1.5 billion, $563 million and $539 million worth of shipments to Iran respectively, Mirashrafi said.