Iran-France Trade Jumps 79% in 2017

EghtesadOnline: Trade between Iran and France exceeded €3.69 billion in 2017, registering a 79.64% surge compared with 2016. This makes the country Iran’s second biggest trade partner from among the 28 member states of the European Union over the period after Italy.

News ID: ۷۸۲۰۹۹

14 March 2018

Iran exported more than €2.28 billion worth of commodities to France last year, indicating a 67.62% increase year-on-year, based on the latest Eurostat figures shared with Financial Tribune.

The exports mainly included mineral fuels, mineral oils, bituminous substances, mineral waxes, nuclear reactors, boilers, machinery and mechanical appliances and parts, edible fruits and nuts, peel of citrus fruits or melons, vehicles other than railroad or tramway rolling-stock and their parts and accessories, coffee, tea, coffeemate and spices, sugar and sugar confectionary, fish and crustaceans, molluscs and other aquatic invertebrates.

Iran's imports from the European country, on the other hand, amounted to more than €1.41 billion, showing a 103.23% hike year-on-year, Financial Tribune reported.

The imported commodities mainly included aircraft, spacecrafts and parts thereof, vehicles other than railroad or tramway rolling-stock and their parts and accessories, pharmaceutical products, nuclear reactors, boilers, machinery and mechanical appliances and parts, electric machinery and equipment and parts, sound recorders and reproducers, television image and sound recorders and reproducers,  optical, photographic, cinematographic, measuring, checking, precision, medical or surgical instruments and apparatus and their parts and accessories and miscellaneous chemical products.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian is in Tehran as part of a European drive to salvage the nuclear deal with Iran that US President Donald Trump is threatening to scuttle and the Islamic Republic has said it may be forced to abandon, Bloomberg reported.

Head of state-owned French investment bank Bpifrance, Nicolas Dufourcq, recently announced that France will start offering euro-denominated credits to Iranian buyers of its goods.

By structuring the financing through entities without any US link, whether to the currency or otherwise, the aim is to avoid the extraterritorial reach of US legislation, Reuters reported.

According to Dufourcq, there is a pipeline of about €1.5 billion in potential contracts from interested French exporters.