it was boasting that it was dumping European trade partners for the Third World.
After the revolution, revolutionary ideologues demanded that the new regime reduce its ties to Europe and shift the bulk of its trade to the developing world. Many in Iran scoffed at that, noting that exports went to countries that needed oil and imports were chiefly of capital goods unavailable in the developing world.
Still, the government proclaimed over and over again that it was pursuing a policy of less trade with Europe and more trade with the developing world, especially with Islamic countries.
One analyst accused the regime of finagling and said the government statisticians moved Turkey from the developed world to the developing world in order to show the government was shifting its trade patterns to developing countries.
But the ideological drive to shift trade died many years ago and the issue had not been raised in a long time. Now the issue is the impact of sanctions.
On Monday, Mohammad Nahavandian, president of the Iranian Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Mines, announced that only one-third of all of Iran’s trade now is with Europe. The decline, he said, was the result of sanctions and sour political relations.
He wasn’t boasting that Iran had now shifted trade to the Third World; he was complaining.
“Economic issues are currently eclipsed by political issues and economic relations between Iran and Europe have also been overshadowed by political disputes and differences,” he complained.
PressTV, in reporting Nahavandian’s remarks, reversed his meaning and reported him as boasting that Europe is Iran’s largest trade partner despite sanctions and political disputes! “Despite all existing political barriers, the European Union is still Iran’s biggest trade partner in the world,” PressTV summarized Nahavandian as saying.
PressTV then quoted the EU statistical office, Eurostat, as reporting this month that despite sanctions Iran’s sales to the 27 states of the EU rose 6.4 percent in the first five months of 2011 compared to same period in 2010.
PressTV, however, failed to note that that increase was entirely accounted for by the one-third rise in the price of oil, which averaged about $78 a barrel in the first five months of 2010 and $106 in the first five months of 2011. The volume of European imports from Iran actually fell although the dollar value rose.