Azerbaijan , Baku, March 18 / Trend, A.Yusifzade /
Iran is planning to increase its technical and engineering services export to $25 billion over the five year development plan (2011-2016), BENA reported quoting the Head of Iran's Trade development Organization Babak Afghahi as saying.
According to Afghahi, Iran's technical and engineering services export reached $2.7 billion during eleven months of current Iranian year this year (started March 21, 2010).
Earlier the Head of Iran's Chamber of Commerce, Industries and Mines Mohammad Nahavandian said Iran plans to boost its exports of technical and engineering services to the neighboring and African countries.
"In addition to the neighboring markets, we can have potential markets for Iran's technical and engineering services in a number of countries such as the African countries," Nahavandian added.
Reminding that the volume and quality of the goods and services are of crucial importance in finding target markets for their export, Nahavandian mentioned that a number of Iranian industrial and agricultural products have already found their way into the foreign markets.
Iran 's trade volume from March 2010 to February 2011 reached $82 billion, indicating the country's imports stood at $58 billion.
Last year, Iran exported $28.4 billion worth of non-oil products as well as technical and engineering services, and $66.21 billion worth of oil and gas products. Iran also imported $55 billion worth of commodities.
Earlier Iran's Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi said that the figure for Iran's non-oil exports will top $45 billion in the next Iranian year starting March 21.
He noted that under the government's plans, exporters will have representatives in the Supreme Council for Non-oil Exports to help remove the obstacles in the way and increase the volume of non-oil exports.
The Iranian official also stressed the need for exports to surpass imports. "All the existing barriers in the way of non-oil exports should be removed through the cooperation of government and Majlis (Iran's Parliament)," he urged.
