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Cargo transit via Iran up 58.5% in four months: IRICA
Mohammad Reza Rezvanifar said on Monday that the volume of cargo transit through Iran in the four months to late July had reached a total of 7.622 million metric tons (mt), an increase of 58.5% from the same period in 2023, Press TV reported.
Rezvanifar said cargo transit via the Piranshahr border crossing, located on the border between Iran and Iraq’s Kurdistan region, had witnessed a 661% year on year increase in the March-July period, the largest among all border crossings in Iran.
Transit activity at Sarakhs crossing, a key trade gateway between Iran and Central Asia on the border with Turkmenistan, rose by 286% over the same period, he said.
The Parvizkhan customs office, located in Iran’s province of Kermanshah on the western border with Iraq, was responsible for the largest part of cargo transit via Iran in the four months to late July, said the IRICA chief, adding that cargo transit via the crossing had reached 2.166 million mt over the period.
Iran’s largest container port of Shahid Rajaei, located on the Persian Gulf coast, came second in terms of the volume of foreign cargo processed for transit via the country in March-July, said Rezvanifar.
Iran has eased restrictions on foreign cargo transit while introducing plans to improve its railways and roads infrastructure in recent years.
That has come as part of efforts to generate more revenues for the country from a growing freight transport activity on the north-south and east-west trade corridors in the region.
Non-oil exports to Oman up 40%
Meanwhile, the country’s export of non-oil products to the Sultanate of Oman in the first three months of this year in the Iranian calendar registered a 40% growth, said an official at the Trade Promotion Organization of Iran (TPOI), Mehr News Agency reported.
The director general of the West Asia Department of the TPOI noted that $392 million worth of non-oil goods were exported from the country to Oman in the first three months of the current Iranian calendar year (March 21 to June 22, 2024), showing a 40% increase as compared to the last year’s corresponding period.
Oil bitumen, iron ingot, urea, compressed iron ore, ferrous products, sponge iron, greenhouse tomatoes, etc. were of the main products exported from Iran to the Sultanate of Oman in this timespan, Abdolamir Rabihavi added.
Iran imported $104 million worth of products from Oman in the first quarter of the current Iranian calendar year, showing a decrease compared to the same period last year.
The TPOI official pointed out that Iran imported $198 million worth of goods from Oman last year (ended March 19, 2024).
Elsewhere in his remarks, Rabihavi pointed to the trade exchanges between Iran and Qatar and stated that Iran exported about $30 million worth of non-oil goods to neighboring Qatar between March 21 to June 22, 2024, showing a 16% increase compared to the same period last year.
Iran imported $24 million worth of products from Qatar in the first quarter of the current Iranian calendar year (started March 21, 2024), registering an eight percent growth compared to the last year’s corresponding period, Rabihavi added.