Iran’s Minister of Industry, Mines, and Trade Reza Fatemi Amin said on Sunday that the country would resume car imports as of mid-May.
Iran banned car imports in 2018 following the re-establishment of US sanctions on the country, the minister said.
Iran’s oil sales reduced due to the sanctions forcing the government to decide to pass a law to ban imports of car so as to be able to manage forex consumption, he added.
Fatemi Amin said that the ban on car imports will expire in Mid-May and will not be extended any more.
There is an annual demand for 1.5 million cars in Iran while the domestic automakers supply only 1 million cars per annum, the minister said, noting that “demand is more than supply and the domestic carmakers have not been able to fill this gap. Therefore, we need to import”.
He said that another reason that caused the government not to extend the ban is that the country is no longer facing forex restrictions as non-oil exports are expected to top $47 billion by the end of the current Iranian calendar year (due to end within a week).