Week in Brief 18.01.2019

Iran has exported 4.5 billion USD of foods and agricultural goods over the first 8 months of the current Iranian year. This figure shows 7% growth with respect to the same period a year ago. However, most of this growth is thanks to the rise in export of saffron, while export in several other products have decreased.

Chocolates, confectionary and dairy products make the majority of Iranian exported foods and command 32% share.

Since April 2018, the export of dairy products and ice-cream has dropped by 31%. Bad weather caused vast damage to pistachios plantations, ruining up to 80% of the production.

The government also banned the export of tomato and tomato-paste, to meet the local demand and therefore figures have dropped in this field as well.

Main export destinations for Iranian foods are Iraq, Afghanistan, United Arab Emirates, Pakistan and Hong Kong.


600,000 smartphones imported to Iran are waiting to be cleared from Customs. Since May 2018, when the government decided to fix the exchange rate at 42,000 rials for one USD, some goods were entitled to be imported at this rate. Smartphones were one of them. However, these smartphones have never been cleared from the customs. The shortage in supply, pushed prices in smartphone markets high. Ghanoon Daily writes that this year only 25 to 30 percent of the demand for smartphones have been met.

Although the authorities promised several times that these cellphones will be released and brought to the market very soon, so far there has been no sign of the increase in supply.