Iran Import Archives - Iran News Daily

Germany shipments to Iran in 11 months at €1.3b

reporter 1222 — Sat, 11 Jan 2020 09:58:05 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – Germany shipments to Iran during the first 11 months of 2019 amounted to around €1.3 billion ($1.44 billion), preliminary data from the Statistics Office showed on Friday.

Germany shipments primarily deliver machines, chemical products, food, and pharmaceutical products to Iran, reported Reuters.

German imports from Iran reached some €191 million during the 11-month period.

Reuters said Friday that a ship was due to load about 50,000 tons of wheat in Germany for Iran within days. Traders say wheat shipments to Iran are also expected from the Baltic region.

A forum entitled “Iran-Germany Commercial Relations: Situation and Prospects” was held in Tehran back in October.

Deputy German Ambassador to Iran Oliver Schnakenberg, CEO of German-Iranian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (AHK) Dagmar von Bohnstein, the head of Tehran Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture, Masoud Khansari, and head of AHK in Iran Abbasali Qassaei were among participants at the event.

The two sides explored ways of overcoming these barriers and put forward solutions to ease economic interactions, especially under the current sanctions regime imposed by the United States against Iran.

In 2017, the figure indicated growth of 14.89 percent in terms of value compared to the amount for the same period of the preceding year, the Iranian Customs Administration announced.

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Iran tops trade surplus in 9 months

reporter 1222 — Wed, 01 Jan 2020 08:23:14 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – Iran exported $31.9 billion worth of goods during the nine months of the current Iranian year (March 21-Dec. 21), said the chairman of Trade Promotion Organization of Iran, which compared with imported goods we see a surplus.

Hamid Zadboum said on Monday that $31.8 billion of goods were also imported into the country during the same period.

“Iran registered a trade surplus of $100 million during the nine-month span,” he added.

Referring to the big capacities of the country’s neighbors for increasing exports, Zadboum said, “According to TPO studies, Iran’s 15 neighboring countries imported about $1.16 trillion of non-oil commodities in 2018.”

He underlined the free trade agreement with the Eurasian Economic Union, saying, “Three of the mentioned 15 neighbors, namely Russia, Armenia, and Kazakhstan, are part of Eurasia and next year, when the free trade negotiations begin, we can make up to 85 percent of our trade with these countries under the free trade deal.”

China, Iraq, Turkey, United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Afghanistan are among the top export destinations of Iranian products, while China, UAE, Turkey, India, and Germany are mostly the five major exporters of goods to Iran.

Iran plans to launch 15 mega export projects to identify more target markets, according to TPO’s former head.

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Domestic production increases savings

reporter 1222 — Sun, 15 Dec 2019 13:22:19 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – Iranian Industry, Mining, and Trade Minister Reza Rahmani said that relying on domestic production has increased €412 million for the country savings over the past six months in which six desks have been held on the matter, IRNA reported.

Speaking in a meeting of the ministry’s council of deputies on Saturday, Rahmani said the mentioned desks are focused on automotive, petrochemicals, mining, electricity, electronics and telecommunications industries.

The official also noted that preparations have been made for holding seven more desks for promoting domestic production in the fields of electricity, electronics, and telecommunications, petrochemicals, home appliances, utilities, rail and auto industries which will make the country savings another €490 million.

Improving and boosting domestic production has been one of the major strategies that Iran has been following in the past two years in order to increase its independence.

To this end, the Iranian government has put supporting domestic producers atop agenda in the current year.

In late November, Rahmani had said that relying on domestic production will save $10 billion for the country in the next two years.

Speaking in a ceremony on indigenizing production of telecommunications equipment, the minister said that of the mentioned $10 billion, some $500 million is predicted to be earned through domestic production of telecommunications equipment, and $400 million via indigenizing production of car parts, of which $300 million has been already achieved.

“Today, all available potentials and capacities in the country are being used to materialize the target of domestic production and the Ministry of Industry, Mining and Trade will spare no effort in this due”, Rahmani further emphasized.

He said the country aims to produce electrical, automobile and telecommunications goods and double exports to 15 neighboring countries in order to reach a target value of $48 billion.

Back in October, Leader of Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei said government officials should ban the import of goods that are also produced domestically.

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Channel for Export of Food, Medicine to Iran; Swiss

reporter 1222 — Thu, 12 Dec 2019 08:12:21 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – A channel aimed at easing export of food and medicine to Iran following Europe’s failure to make INSTEX operational could be “up and running within months”, senior Swiss and US officials told Reuters.

Pascale Baeriswyl, Swiss state secretary for foreign affairs, and US Ambassador Edward McMullen spoke in separate interviews in the Swiss capital late on Tuesday, days after a rare Swiss-brokered prisoner swap by Iran and the United States.

“Our role is really to be able to provide food and health goods to the Iranian people. And therefore we are working hard on establishing that humanitarian channel for export of food and medicine,” Baeriswyl said.

Asked if the channel could be operational in the first half of 2020, she said, “I hope so, but it is very difficult to predict since it is not entirely in our hands.”

McMullen — whose country’s sanctions on Iran have deterred foreign banks from doing any business, including humanitarian deals, with Tehran- said he is “hopeful” the Swiss channel would be operational soon.

“Fortunately, I think we are at that point now where we are working with Switzerland on the final details. And hopefully, we’ll be seeing some kind of finality to that conversation in the near future,” he said.

The proposed Swiss channel may even outpace the long-awaited Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges (INSTEX), a long-overdue mechanism the E3 (France, Britain, and Germany) are intending to launch to facilitate trade with Tehran despite the US sanctions.

“If this (Swiss) model works it would be great if others could follow… It’s not a competing instrument, just a slightly different approach,” said the Swiss state secretary for foreign affairs.

Late last month, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden said they would become new shareholders in INSTEX.

The launching of INSTEX is a small part of Europe’s commitment to compensate for the US withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which was supposed to end anti-Iran sanctions in return for certain curbs in the country’s peaceful nuclear program.

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Silence on US sanctions must be broken

reporter 1222 — Sun, 01 Dec 2019 06:30:04 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – International organizations need to speak out and break the silence about US economic sanctions that target Iran’s food and medicine on top of the economy, an Iranian minister has said, warning of the adverse consequences of the embargoes.

“The brave Iranian people are being victimized by plots and economic sanctions that have been imposed by the US administration,” Iran’s Minister of Health and Medical Education Saeed Namaki said in a letter to Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Friday, Press TV reported.

Iranians, he added, have been the target of the severe restrictions that have badly affected imports of food, medicine, and medical equipment.

The Iranian minister said Washington claims such sanctions do not include medicine, medical equipment, and food, and they are meant to suspend exchanges in international banking systems. However, he argued, the behavior that the White House has adopted only goes in line with its efforts to intentionally stop imports of essential goods for the needy.

The minister emphasized that major obstacles put by the US in the way of Iran’s import of medicine and medical equipment have had a negative impact on the treatment of many Iranian patients.

“By imposing sanctions on the Iranian people, the US has not only committed economic terrorism but in practice, it has carried out a crime against humanity,” Namaki said.

As the main organization in charge of providing universal public health coverage, WHO must not remain indifferent to this important issue, the Iranian minister said.

He added that officials of the United Nations must be held accountable for the adoption of measures in violation of law.

Human Rights Watch said in October that American sanctions against Iran have drastically constrained the country’s ability to pay for humanitarian imports and are threatening the health rights of Iranians.

US President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal last year and reimposed sanctions as part of a stated campaign of “maximum pressure” against the Islamic Republic.

Officially, the sanction regime makes exceptions for food, medicine, and other humanitarian goods, but most companies are unwilling to do any trade with Iran for fear of repercussions in the world’s largest economy.

This is while the United States insists that medicines and humanitarian goods are exempt from sanctions. The restrictions on trade have made many banks and companies across the world hesitant to do business with Iran, fearing punitive measures from Washington. The country is cut off from the international banking system.

Official reports say Iran produces some 95% of the basic medicines it needs and even exports some of the production to neighboring countries.

But when it comes to more sophisticated medication and medicines for costly and rare illnesses and medical equipment, Iran depends heavily on imports. And though the state provides health care for all, many treatments needed for complicated cases are simply not available.

In May, the Academy of Medical Sciences of Iran wrote a letter of complaint to the UN in this regard.

In the letter, addressed to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, the academy’s President Alireza Marandi mentioned a previously written complaint in condemnation of the “unjust” sanctions.

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Iranian products replace imports

reporter 1222 — Wed, 27 Nov 2019 08:06:04 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – Iranian officials plan to manufacture $11 billion worth of domestic products in the next couple of years to replace some imports.

The Iranian companies aims to produce electrical, automobile and telecommunications commodities, and double exports to neighboring countries in order to reach a target value of $48 billion products to replace imports, Reza Rahmani, the minister of industry, mine and trade, was quoted as saying by IRNA.

Iran started to ban some 1,400 non-essential goods and commodities within weeks of a decline in the value of rial, the national currency, against the dollar last year, after the United States abandoned the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and re-imposed sanctions against the Iranian economy.

The policy is designed to support local manufacturers and shore up foreign exchange supplies.

Iran exported 80 million tons of non-oil commodities worth $24.5 billion in the first seven months of the current Iranian year (March 21-October 22), registering a 17-percent rise in terms of weight.

According to Deputy Industry Minister Hossein Modares Khiabani, in terms of value the figure fell 11 percent compared to last year.

The official noted that the government had allocated 870 billion rials (about $20.7 million) worth of incentives for the country’s exporters in the current Iranian year (ends on March 19, 2020), adding that such incentives could boost national non-oil exports.

Increasing non-oil exports to neighboring countries is among major plans that the Iranian government is pursuing in the current Iranian calendar year.

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Iran medicine imports affected by U.S sanctions

reporter 1222 — Wed, 30 Oct 2019 05:07:04 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – Foreign Minister Mohammad Zarif said on Sunday that the new U.S. regulations is even targeting Iran medicine imports.

“Now, U.S. Treasury is targeting not merely food but also our imports of medicine,” Zarif tweeted.

In a move that the Treasury Department claimed would ease the shipment of food and medicine into Iran for humanitarian reasons, the Trump administration has announced a move to establish a system of “permissible trade.”

There was never any legal basis for restricting humanitarian aid under U.S. law, though U.S. hostility toward any shipment of anything to Iran made it de facto all but impossible, and banking statements scared many away from even trying.

Statements from NGOs were quick to criticize the effort, saying that far from clearing the way to allow such aid shipments, the U.S. was likely making it even harder to accomplish with new regulations from the Treasury Department.

To send aid to Iran, the Treasury Department will demand institutions submit “substantial and unprecedented” information, all invoices and details of all customers, and whether any of them were on U.S., EU, or UN blacklists.

Zarif said, “Contrary to its deceptive claims, new U.S. regulations will aggravate economic terrorism on ordinary Iranians.”

This is enough of a hassle that some analysts are predicting that there will be “not a single banker in the world” willing to accept these new conditions, and subsequently, it will have a chilling effect on aid, according to antiwar.com.

In his Sunday tweet, Zarif said U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo “voiced his delusion that Iranian people must bow to the U.S. “if they want to eat”. It emphasizes the fact of targeting Iran medicine imports.

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