Sanctions Have Increased Cost of Exports at Least by 20%
Sanctions Have Increased Cost of Exports at Least by 20%
Head of Tehran Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Mine and Agriculture (TCCIMA) says sanctions have increased the costs of exporters by 10 to 20 percent because they have to circumvent the sanctions.

TEHRAN (Iran News) –Head of Tehran Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Mine and Agriculture (TCCIMA) says sanctions have increased the costs of exporters by 10 to 20 percent because they have to circumvent the sanctions.

Speaking in a ceremony for honoring the top exporters of Tehran Province, Masoud Khansari said that Iran can be the exporter number one of the region as the country has good resources and required potentials to this end, but flight of capitals and elites from the country due to the rigidness in the business environment has deprived the country of this opportunity.

He said that exporters are facing currently with many problems and although the statistics show that the amount of exports has increased this year comparing to last year, the growth in exports has fallen behind in competition with the regional rivals.

He admitted that the country is falling behind day in day in competition with the regional states, stipulating that sanctions have had considerable impact on the exports and exporters are competing in an unfair condition.

Khansari added that sanctions have deprived exporters of providing cheap transportation and financial exchanges and Iranian exporters face at least 10 to 20 percent rise in their costs for rounding the sanctions.

He then pointed to the problem of different rates of forex in the national economy, and said that the difference between the price of dollar in the NIMA system and the free market has created many problems for the economic activists and this difference disrupts exports.

Khansari reiterated that the single rate of forex in the country is one of the main requirements of the national economy, adding that something which happened for the forex rate for years ago seems to be repeated now and that time the official rate of dollar was 4200 tomans and it was 10,000 tomans in the free market and today NIMA system dollar is 22,000 tomans and in the free market it is around 42,000 tomans.

He reiterated he wonders why once and for all the officials do not make a serious decision on unification of forex rate.

Addressing the Majlis representatives who were present in the event and said that economic activists were unable to convince the government to unify the forex rate and expressed hope lawmakers could pressure the government in this field.

Khansari said that exporters buy their raw materials forex with free market rate and they have return their forex to the country with NIMA system rate and in this condition exporters suffer losses and in such a condition if the exports do not decrease, they will definitely not increase.

He went on to say that in this condition  exporters of big industries like steel and petrochemicals since they are state or semi-state run can survive but small exporters cannot survive and they should be let trade their money.

He then pointed to some problems for exporters and the serious challenges that they are facing.