Within the past three months, 120 million dollars of candies have been exported to Iraq, reports Trade Development Organisation of Iran.
While Iran imports sugar at a highly subsidized exchange rate, exporting of candies seems to provide huge profit margins. Sugar is imported to the country at 42,000 rials for each USD, while the exchange rate at the market is at 120,000 rials for one USD.
Sugar in Iran is among the essential goods for which the government provides foreign currencies at lower exchange rate to be imported.
Candy producers use this chance and then export their products and selling their foreign currencies at normal rate at the market make a huge profit. Although the government admits this cycle, it has not presented a solution to control it.