Page 22 - IRANRptDec19

Iran, Russia trade up 24% y/y in seven-month period
Bilateral trade between Iran and EU collapses 76% in H1
on trade opportunities held at the directorate of the Iran Trade Facilitation Organization (TPOI) in Syria. He noted: “Over the past year, more than 10 economic delegations were sent from Iran to Syria or vice versa.”
"Today, competent Iranian companies are playing a key role in rebuilding Syria in the field of infrastructure and energy," Kashefi added.
Kashefi said there were hopes that a trade and business agreement would be concluded by Iran and Syria, thereby accelerating trade and economic relations between the two countries.
He estimated that the trade balance between Iran and Syria in the 2018/2019 Persian calendar year that ended in March stood at $152mn in favour of Iran. He added that in the first half of the 2019/2020 Persian year Iran had a surplus of $69mn.
Iran’s bilateral trade with Russia totalled $1.33bn in the first seven months of 2019, marking a 24.6% y/y increase, the​ ​Federal Customs Service of Russia has been cited as saying by Sputnik.
Overall, Iran exported $333.7mn worth of goods to the Russian Federation, representing a fall of 6.2% y/y.
Russian exports to its southern neighbour amounted to $999.3mn, up 39.9% y/y.
Iran’s share in Russia's foreign trade during the period rose to 0.4% from 0.3% in the corresponding seven months of last year.
Russia has lately is mostly exporting agricultural products including grains and meat to Iran.
Trade between the European Union and Iran in the first half of this year collapsed by 76.01% y/y to reach €2.56bn, according to latest data from the Eurostat European Statistical Office, the ​Financial Tribune ​reported. European companies have mostly mothballed business that was conducted between themselves and Iran since the US last year cranked up the punishing sanctions regime it is directing at Tehran.
Germany, Italy and the Netherlands were Tehran’s biggest European trading partners during the first-half period with bilateral trade values of €777.32mn, €451.63mn and €260.82mn, respectively.
Some European nations appear to have almost ceased all trade with Iran, with the value given in relation to Malta only €147,233, to Slovakia €2.36mn, Greece €21.63mn and Portugal €6.14mn. These countries thus saw 99.96%, 97.79%, 96.85% and 96.45% falls in their trade figure with Iran, respectively. The figures also showed Iran sent €418.31mn worth of commodities to the EU during the six-month period, marking a decline of 93.15% y/y.
Germany remained the top export destination (€99.64mn), followed by Italy (€94.51mn) and Belgium with (€75.37mn).
Imports from the EU dropped 53.13% to stand at €2.14bn.
Germany was the biggest exporter to Iran (€677.68mn), while other figures included Italy (€357.11mn), the Netherlands (€252.02mn), France (€167.94mn) and Belgium (€113.65mn).
These figures were up y/y by 5,561%, 2,114% and 845%, respectively. Imports sent to Iran included nuclear reactor parts, boilers, machinery and mechanical appliances and parts, whereas imports included plastics, grains, industrial machinery, oils, cosmetics, and paper and paper pulp.
German exports to Iran fell by 48% to $759mn in the first half of this year and Iran's sales to Germany for the same period dropped 43% to $123mn, according to the BGA (Federation of German Wholesale and Foreign Trade) trade association.​"German companies are forced to choose between their
22​ IRAN Country Report​ December 2019 www.intellinews.com