Tehran, Iran, Jan. 28
Trend:
A member of the Board of Directors of the Association of Fertilizer Importers said that Iran's Shipping Company has raised prices by 2.5 times and increased the price of each container from 800 euros to 1,800 euros.
"There are no accurate statistics for the country's needs for fertilizers, but a general number of 5 million tons have been announced,” Mohsen-Ahmad Mokhberi said, Trend reports citing ILNA.
Based on the current multi-tier scheme, imports will receive foreign currency at different rates, based on the priority of goods, with the fourth group deemed "luxurious" by the government and facing an outright ban.
According to the Islamic Republic of Iran Customs Administration, essential goods, such as oil, rice and wheat will receive their currency needs from oil revenues at the 42,000 rials rate.
The next priority includes "raw materials and intermediate goods", the forex requirements of which will be met from the earnings from petrochemicals, steel and minerals exports.
The third category includes "consumer goods", the hard currency for which will be provided from exports that are not required to be registered in NIMA.
"Ferrous fertilizers once were placed in group 1 and went back to group 2 and were transferred again to group 1. This has caused uncertainty among the importers of fertilizers," said Mokhberi.
"Many of our fertilizers were registered with an official currency rate of 42,000 rials, but we are forced to pay more at customs," he said.
"Currency transactions are another major problem of companies that import fertilizers, and many European companies do not accept to send goods to Iran. Italian companies have returned to Iran the money they received and this has become a matter of concern," he said.