TEHRAN- Commodities valued at $637 million have been exported from Khorasan Razavi Province, in the northeast of Iran, during the first eight months of the current Iranian calendar year (March 20-November 20), according to a provincial official.

Omid Jahankhah, an official with the province’s customs department, also announced that products worth $236 million have been imported to the province in the eight-month period.

He mentioned saffron, pistachios with fresh or dried skin, metal sections, industrial tallow used in the soap industry, flooring and building materials as the major exported items, and Afghanistan, Iraq, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Hong Kong as the top destinations of the province’s exported products during the mentioned time span.

Unbleached cotton, raw materials for production units, raw or unbleached silk, and machinery for production units were the main imported goods, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Uzbekistan, China, and Turkey were the top sources of imports, according to Jahankhah.

As announced by the head of the Islamic Republic of Iran Customs Administration (IRICA), the value of Iran’s non-oil trade during the first eight months of the current Iranian calendar year reached $44.6 billion.

Mehdi Mirashrafi has said that in the mentioned eight months, Iran imported $23.1 billion worth of goods, while the exports stood at $21.5 billion.

The total volume of traded goods was estimated at about 97.7 million tons, of which over 75 million tons were related to exports and about 21.8 million tons were imported goods.

According to Mirashrafi, the imports in the said period declined one percent and 18 percent in terms of weight and value, respectively.

The exports also experienced a fall of 14 percent and 19 percent in terms of weight and value, respectively.

Noting the downward trend of the country’s foreign trade is ending and the trade is getting back to normal, the official said: "As we announced in previous months, fortunately, the downward trend of our country's exports is approaching normal conditions month by month, and we hope to have better conditions in terms of exports by the end of the year."

Iran's top five non-oil export destinations during this period were Iraq with over $5.3 billion worth of exports, China with the same amount, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) with over $2.7 billion, and Turkey with $1.6 billion as well as Afghanistan with $1.5 billion.

According to the IRICA head, the top five sources of imports during this period were China with $6 billion, the UAE with $5.4 billion, Turkey with $2.6 billion, India with $1.4 billion, and Germany with $1.1 billion worth of imports.

Most of the imported goods into the country in the mentioned time span were basic goods or raw materials, Mirashrafi stressed.

MA/MA