April 21, 2017
For only the second year since the revolution, Iran has chalked up more “non-oil” exports than imports.
Economically, all that matters is the balance of trade between total exports and total imports. And because of Iran’s huge oil exports, the country routinely exports far more than it imports. But politically, it means a great deal in the Islamic Republic for imports to fall below the level of “non-oil” exports.
The problem is that most non-oil exports nowadays are oil products, just not crude oil. The major “non-oil” exports in the just-completed Persian year were gas condensates, light oils, liquefied gases, liquefied propane, petroleum gases and liquefied hydrocarbons. Those categories of “non-oil” exports made up more than one-third of all “non-oil” exports.
The export and import figures released last week by the Customs Administration also show that Iran continues a heavy dependence on China, which buys a fifth of all Iranian non-oil exports and sells Iran a quarter of all of its imports.
The latest data released by the Islamic Republic of Iran Customs Administration shows that Iran exported non-oil commodities worth $43.93 billion during the last Persian year (ended March 20), registering 3.58 percent growth in total value year-on-year.
Iran imported $43.684 billion worth of goods during the year, marking a 5.16 percent growth. Field corn, soybeans, cars, auto parts and rice were Iran’s main imports, in that order.
That gave Iran a positive balance of payments of $246 million, smaller than the previous year’s positive balance of $924 million. Those are the only two years in the 37 years since the revolution that Iran has exported more non-oil products than it has imported—the politically significant point.
China remained the top export destination for Iranian non-oil goods. The Asian country imported goods worth $8.177 billion, up 9.1 percent compared with the year before.
Other major export destinations were the UAE with $7.4 billion, Iraq with $6.1 billion, Turkey with $3.2 billion and South Korea with $2.8 billion.
South Korea recorded a 229 percent increase in the value of imports from Iran. However, exports to Turkey slumped 3.5 percent.
Major exporters to Iran in the year were China ($10.73 billion), the UAE ($6.4 billion), South Korea ($3.46 billion), Turkey ($2.73 billion) and Germany ($2.53 billion).
Iranian imports from the UAE declined by 17.5 percent while those from South Korea fell 6.0 percent and from Turkey dropped 8.4 percent. However, with the end of sanctions, Iran’s imports from Germany increased 39.2 percent.