TEHRAN- The value of non-oil exports from Iran’s central Markazi Province reached $306.53 million during the first five months of the current Iranian calendar year (March 20-August 21), a provincial official announced, Mehr news agency reported.

“Markazi Province exported commodities to 80 countries including Afghanistan, Iraq, Turkey, the UAE, Azerbaijan and Pakistan during the mentioned period”, Saeed Farrokhi, the province's deputy governor for the economic affairs, stated.

The official further put the value of imports to the province at $124 million in the first five months of this year and named China, Turkey, the UAE, India and Taiwan as the main exporters of goods to the province.

As announced by Head of the Islamic Republic of Iran Customs Administration (IRICA) Mehdi Mirashrafi, the value of Iran’s non-oil trade during the first five months of the current year has reached $24.6 billion, about $5 billion more than the figure for the first four months.

The official has said that the significant increase in the value of trade indicates that the negative impact of the Covid-19 outbreak on Iran's foreign trade has alleviated.

“The impact of the pandemic on Iran’s trade has decreased from 54 percent in late March to 27 percent in August,” Mirashrafi said.

As reported, in the mentioned five months, Iran imported $13.7 billion worth of goods, while exporting $10.9 billion.

The volume of traded goods was estimated at about 52 million tons, of which over 38 million tons were related to exports and about 13.8 million tons were imported goods.

Iran's top five non-oil export destinations during this period were China with over $3 billion worth of exports, Iraq with $2.406 billion, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) with over $1.554 billion, and Afghanistan with $871 million as well as Turkey with $513 million, so the country’s top five export destinations remained the same in comparison to previous months.

The top five sources of imports during this period were China with $3.552 billion, the UAE with $3.186 billion, Turkey with $1.475 billion, India with $941 million, and Germany with $548 million worth of imports.

MA/MA