TEHRAN (FNA)- Some 408,000 tons of non-oil commodities worth $525 million were exported from Iran’s Northwestern province of West Azerbaijan in the past 10 months up to January 20, which posts a 45% surge in comparison with the corresponding period in the last year, according to local economic officials.
Head of West Azerbaijan province's Industries, Mining and Trade Organization Qolamreza Babayee said that non-oil exports from the province during the past ten months to January 20, amounted to $525 million, up 45% in comparison with the corresponding period in last year.
Light oils, agricultural products, including watermelon, walnut, plum, tomato, almond and apple, polyethylene, and other food products constitute the main exports of West Azerbaijan, he added.
West Azerbaijan borders Turkey, Iraq and Azerbaijan’s Nakhichevan Autonomous Republic.
The province trades through five land border crossings, namely Poldasht, Bazargan, Razi, Sarv and Tamarchin.
Iranian officials started planning for policies to counter the US possible sanctions a year before US President Donald Trump entered into office in early 2017. The policies are now proving effective as economic indexes are indicating inefficacy of the US pressures.
Washington’s unilateral sanctions against Tehran began in November 2018, five months after US President Donald Trump withdrew from an international deal on Iran’s nuclear program.
Claiming that the bans were working properly, Trump tightened them in May 2019, only to see that Iran was finding new solutions to recoup the losses.
Early in July, Iranian Industry Minister Reza Rahmani said that despite US efforts to cripple Tehran’s economy, year-on-year comparison showed that the country’s domestic production increased in the first quarter of the local calendar year (March 21-June 21).
Early in this month, Iranian Minister of Roads and Urban Development Mohammad Eslami said that the country's exports have outpaced imports despite the harsh US sanctions.
Iran is the only state in the world without foreign debt as the country's trade balance is now positive and exports have surpassed imports, Eslami said.
A great deal of development in the civil, water, electricity, gas and utility sectors have been made, and during the outrageous sanctions, the country has become a manufacturing workshop, he added.
In relevant remarks in last month, Deputy Head of Iran Trade Development Organization Farhad Nouri said that the Iranian factories and manufacturers which were reliant on parts and intermediary products for their production are now either producing their needs themselves or buying them from their compatriot partners, adding that this is the plus point of US’ unilateral sanctions.
Sanctions are not a blessing but they have prepared the ground for economic activists to make efforts and the factories that imported their raw materials for more than two decades are now either producing themselves or buy them from local units, Nouri said in Arak, the central city of Markazi province.
He added that all types of goods worth 31.9 billion dollars were exported from Iran over the past nine months, reminding that trade worth of 63 billion dollars under the current economic condition is indebted to concerted efforts of the economic activists.
Nouri further noted that China, Iraq, UAE, Afghanistan and Turkey are major destinations for the Iranian exports while Turkey, UAE and Germany are biggest Iranian trade partners in field of imports.