The head of the Ahvaz Chamber of Commerce said the value of non-oil exports from Iran’s Khuzestan province to Iraq, one of the country’s key strategic trade partners, has fallen by nearly 50%, blaming customs pricing policies for the sharp decline.
Shahla Amouri said comparative customs data showed a significant drop in shipments to Iraq. The value of exports from Khuzestan to Iraq stood at $2.167 billion in the first nine months of the previous Iranian year, but fell to $1.219 billion in the first 10 months of the current year, marking a near 50% decrease in export value to the strategic trading partner.
Amouri said a core challenge lay in the way customs authorities calculate the value of exported goods, arguing that officials continue to rely on state-set benchmark rates that diverge sharply from market realities and competitive prices in destination markets.
She said that when an exporter sells goods in Iraq’s competitive market for $100, customs authorities may register the value at $150 based on internal formulas and directives. As a result, the exporter is required to repatriate foreign currency equivalent to the higher declared value.
According to Amouri, this approach has created what she described as a “false foreign exchange commitment,” whereby the government and the central bank expect traders to return $150 to the domestic economic cycle even though only $100 was actually received from the buyer.
She said the discrepancy forces exporters to source the shortfall from the open market in order to meet their foreign exchange obligations, leading to mounting losses and, in many cases, driving businesses out of target markets.
Amouri added that exporters also face substantial additional costs to bypass sanctions and transfer funds back into the country, expenses that she said are not taken into account by customs authorities or the central bank. Nevertheless, traders are required to repatriate the full amount recorded in customs documents, even if that figure exceeds the actual transaction value.
The mounting financial pressure has prompted many Khuzestan-based exporters to withdraw from the Iraqi market, she said, warning that unless customs authorities revise their valuation methods, raising foreign exchange repatriation ceilings would only penalize exporters further and accelerate the erosion of the province’s remaining trade.