Iranian Exporters seeking solutions in hardship

Iranian Exporters struggle in a flip-flop economic conditions. Central Bank of Iran has issued a report which shows the trend of Iran’s foreign debt. Soon after the nuclear deal between Iran and the 5+1 countries was reached, Iran had the chance to receive foreign finances for various projects. After few years from the nuclear deal, the foreign debts reached 11.3 billion USD in March 2018, i.e. 3 billion USD more than in 2017.

However, since the USA left the nuclear deal and returned its secondary sanctions on Iran, foreign companies started to leave the country or break their agreements of collaboration and therefore the foreign finance and consequently debt started to decrease again.

Iranian exporters raising trade balance

According to the Central Bank, in December 2019, the foreign debt has reached 9.3 billion USD.

Following this report, the Central Bank of Iran has also issued another report about the import and export in the first three quarters of the current Iranian fiscal year.

According to this report, Iran has exported 31.9 billion USD of goods including natural-gas condensates. During the same period, the import to the country has been 31.8 billion USD.

According to Trade Promotion Organization of Iran, the total export in the 12 months of the past Iranian year (21 March 2018-19) was 44.3 billion USD and the total import has been 42.6 billion USD.

Decrease in exported values

One of the figures that the Central Bank has considered is average price of a ton of exported goods. In this regard, this year, on average a ton of exported Iranian goods has been worth $308. Which shows 18 percent decrease with respect a year ago.

Although this average figure tells very little about the price of goods, it is comprehensible that exporting from Iran has become extremely tough over the past year. It is therefore possible that Iranian exporters compromise in selling their goods at lower prices in order to keep their traditional clients.

They also have much less access to the market of developed countries where customers could pay more for the goods. Therefore, most of the Iranian goods go to the neighboring countries and this could partly explain why the average prices have been less with respect to a year ago.