Iran has seen its exports of copper products decrease significantly in the seven months to late October this year, shows a report, as curbs imposed at borders because of the coronavirus pandemic hits the country’s trade of the lucrative metal.
Government trade figures show that the value of copper exports from Iran reached $457.5 million in the first seven months of the current calendar year ending October 21.
The decline was more visible in volume terms, though, as total shipments plummeted 63 percent year on year in late October to stand at 100,164 metric tons.
However, copper accounted for nearly 15 percent of the value of all metals shipments from Iran as experts of various products had generated $3.049 billion over the period.
Iran sits on the seventh largest copper reserves in the world with an estimated 528 million tons or 4.2 percent of all global reserves.
The country aims to produce 280,000 tons of copper cathode, an increase of 12 percent compared to the year to March 19.
Copper concentrate output is also expected to increase from a base of 1.1 million tons recorded over the last calendar year.
Iran’s imports of copper products declined in seven months to October 21 to 732,000 tons as the country spent around $8 million on imports of the metal, down 33 percent in dollar terms compared to the same period last year,
The overall value and volume of imports of metals and mining products into Iran reached 280,312 tons and $1.754 billion, respectively.