Iran’s non-oil export hits USD 17.7bn

Iran’s non-oil exports in the first seven months of the current Iranian calendar year (starting March 21, 2010) has reached USD 17.447 billion, a senior Iranian official says.

Head of Iran’s Customs Administration Ardeshir Mohammadi said that the figure shows a 26 percent increase in comparison with the same period last year.

Mohammadi added that the value of non-oil exports with the exception of gas condensates in the first seven months of the current Iranian year was USD 14.652 billion which showed a 31 percent rise.

He said that the export of petrochemical products also showed a 50 percent increase and that “USD 5.646 billion worth of different petrochemical products were exported during the first seven months of the current Iranian calendar.”

“Our major petrochemicals exports in this period were liquid propane, polyethylene, methanol and iron ore,” Fars News Agency quoted Mohammadi as saying.

Commenting on the volume of export during the first seven months of the current year, the official said that 26.968 million tons of different goods estimated to be worth USD 34.486 billion was imported.

He added that a 10-billion-dollar rise in the volume of Iran’s trade transactions with other countries “shows that the US-engineered UN sanctions against Iran have been ineffective.”