Iran-China Trade Dropped by 36% in 2019
IRAN NEWS ECONOMIC DESK
TEHRAN – Head of Iran-China Joint Chamber of Commerce Majid-Reza Hariri says the trade between Iran and China fell sharply in 2019 and it continued in the early months of 2020.
In an interview with Eghtesadonline, Hariri elaborated economic condition in the country in the past Iranian calendar year which ended on March 19, saying that one can divide Iran’s economy last year into two parts. He added the first part began from March 2019 when the national economy was normal and was like early months of 2018 and the second part began since the U.S. maximum pressures and sanctions restricted access to the forex sources.
He went on to say that despite the Central Bank’s statistics on official inflation rate between 20 to 25 percent, the rate is more than it in the baskets of households, adding that decrease in the public revenues in the country forced people to use and spend their capitals in 2018 and they lost significantly their purchase power in 2019. He further said the domestic production faced lack of demand and it led to recession.
Hariri also pointed to the condition of national economy in the last two months of last year (February and March) and the outbreak of the Coronavirus, saying that all national economic veins are linked to the non-oil exports and the country is run by non-oil exports. He added that the outbreak of the Coronavirus led to slump in the set target for non-oil exports revenues and it restricted severely the trade and some borders were closed.
He then pointed to the significant decline in exports of energy to China, adding that exports of energy accounts for 60 to 70 percent of Iran’s non-oil exports and the outbreak of the virus affected the demand in China and this issue caused the international price to fall.
Hariri further said with what he saw last year and the oil war between Russia and Saudi Arabia, he does nor forecast a good economic condition for the current year.
On the ties with China, he said that the connection with China is still restored but transactions with China have decreased, reiterating that despite Coronavirus disaster, it had an advantage that made it a turning point in Iran-China relation.
Hariri said that till the end of 2019, the trade volume between Iran and China was around $22b and the figure shows almost 36 percent drop comparing to 2018 and the main reason for the fall was a halt in sales of oil to China.
He reiterated that at this moment one cannot forecast anything for the future of the economy because the world is currently in full control of the Coronavirus and all depends how this virus is managed and contained.
Meanwhile according to China Customs Administration statistics, the trade volume between Iran and China has dropped by 27 percent after the outbreak of the virus. The figure shows that the trade volume of Iran and China in the first two months of 2020 stood at $2.54b which shows 27 percent drop comparing to the same period in 2019.
Meanwhile China’s exports to Iran in the first two months of 2020 were around $1.39b while its imports were $1.15b
