Iran's Non-Oil Trade Surplus Tops $700m in 9 Months to Dec. 2018
EghtesadOnline: Iran recorded a trade surplus of $738 million in the nine months ending Dec. 21, 2018, the latest report by the Islamic Republic of Iran Customs Administration shows.
Exports, excluding crude oil, mazut, kerosene and suitcase trade, hit 86.94 million tons worth $33.35 billion, indicating a 1.84% decline in tonnage and a 5.4% increase in value year-on-year.
Imports amounted to 23.87 million tons worth $32.62 billion, down by 13.27% in weight and 15.9% in value over last year’s similar period.
All in all, Iran’s non-oil foreign trade during the first nine months of the current fiscal year (March 21-Dec. 21) stood at $65.97 billion, indicating a 4.68% decrease compared with last year’s corresponding period, according to Financial Tribune.
Iraq was the main customer of Iranian products in the nine-month period. Iran’s exports to Iraq reached $6.92 billion to account for 20.77% of the total value of overall exports during the period. Exports to Iraq increased by 48.7% compared with the same period of last year
By “non-oil”, IRICA refers to all commodities, except for crude oil. Therefore, oil-driven products and byproducts as well as petrochemical products are still categorized as non-oil. IRICA categorizes non-oil exports into three groups of petrochemicals, gas condensates and “other products”.
Petrochemicals accounted for 34.34% of Iran’s total exports and gas condensates group for 8.32%, as exports of non-petroleum based products, including carpets as well as agricultural, industrial and mining products classified within the “other products” group constituted 57.34% of Iran’s overall exports.
Gas condensates group included exports of gas condensates worth $2.77 billion (8.32% of total exports), liquefied natural gas worth $1.81 billion (5.44% of overall exports), liquefied propane worth $1.35 billion (4.07% of total non-oil exports), methanol worth $1.14 billion (3.42% of total exports) and other light oils and products, except for gasoline worth $1.11 billion (3.34% of overall exports).
Imports mainly included field corn ($1.47 billion with a 4.53% share of total imports), auto parts, except tires ($1.21 billion with a 3.7% share of total imports), rice ($1.02 billion with a 3.14% of total imports), soybeans ($944 million with a 2.89% share of total imports) and graphite electrodes used in furnaces ($437 million with a 1.34% share of total imports).
Iraq was the main customer of Iranian products in the nine-month period. Iran’s exports to Iraq reached $6.92 billion to account for 20.77% of the total value of overall exports during the period. Exports to Iraq increased by 48.7% compared with the same period of last year.
After Iraq, Iran’s top trading partners in terms of export during the nine-month period were China, the UAE, Afghanistan and Turkey.
China bought $6.74 billion worth of non-oil goods from Iran during the nine months of the year, accounting for 20.23% of total value of Iran’s exports.
Exports to the UAE stood at $5.13 billion or 15.39% of Iran’s overall non-oil exports. Exports to Afghanistan and Turkey hovered around $2.33 billion and $1.91 billion, respectively.
Nine-month exports to Afghanistan accounted for 7% of Iran’s total non-oil exports and those of Turkey constituted 5.73% of Iran’s overall non-oil exports.
The main exporters to Iran during the period were China with $8.17 billion (25.05% of the value of Iran’s total exports), the UAE with $4.91 billion (15.06%), South Korea with $1.83 billion (5.62%), Germany with $1.82 billion (5.59%) and Switzerland with $1.79 billion (5.5%).