Tehran-London Trade Falls Sharply Amid Political Dispute
IRAN NEWS ECONOMIC DESK
A member of board of directors of the British Iranian Chamber of Commerce (BICC) says the trade volume of Iran and UK has fallen sharply in recent years and with the current political dispute, it is expected the trade between both states to deteriorate.
Speaking to ILNA, Sadegh Samii said that Iran’s trade with UK and actually with whole Europe has witnessed considerable decline every year and as long as sanctions are alive, this trend would continue.
He noted that due to current sensitive condition, the real statistics of trade are not announced by the Customs Administration and they are manipulated. He went on to say but due to evidences, one can say the bilateral trade between Tehran and London is not satisfactory and he predicts the condition to get worse.
Samii admitted that tension between Iran and the U.S., the U.S. pullout of the JCPOA , Europe’s lack of respect to its JCPOA obligations and the rise in dollar price all have been major reasons for the drop in trade volume of Iran and UK.
He reiterated that the BICC can do nothing to improve the trade as long as the condition remains unchanged.
Meanwhile the president of the BICC, Dr. Amir Houshang Amini delved into details of trade between Tehran and London. He said that by comparing statistics for imports and exports of both countries in seven months last year, one can see Iran’s imports have been 26 times more than UK’s imports.
Amini added that in seven months last year, Iran’s exports to UK stood at $21.33m and it happened via 26 customs entries while at the same time, imports stood at $546m.
He added that petrochemicals, carpet, foodstuff, floor covering and rug were the major exports of Iran to UK.
The latest statistics which were released by Eurostat show that the trade volume of Iran and UK was around 69m euros in the first five months of 2019 and it shows 30 percent drop comparing to the same period in 2018.
The statistics claim that UK’s exports to Iran stood at 62m euros and it shows 26% drop comparing to the same period in the preceding year while Iran’s exports to UK stood at 7m euros, almost halved comparing to the preceding year.
Meat, apparel, cosmetics, liquid soap and vehicles have been of the major British goods which have been exported to Iran this year.
