Azerbaijan, Baku, September 9 /Trend N. Umid, S. Isayev
Iranian carmaker company Saipa shares some 40 percent of Iraqi auto market, Iranian Jahanesanat newspaper reported.
According to the report, Saipa plans to establish a production line in Iraq's Iskandariyah city.
In mid- August the carmaker started sending consignment of parts for Saipa's Tiba and X100 models to Iskandariyah to start the production of cars on a large scale.
Tiba is sold for $8,500 in Iraq. Previously in May, another Iranian carmaker Iran Khodro announced that it will establish a production line with the capacity of 30,000 units in the Iskandariya.
The production line will assemble car parts with semi-knocked-down (SKD) method.
Meanwhile, in January, Nour Salem, a member of the Economy and Investment Committee in the Iraqi parliament, declared that this committee had suggested a ban on the import of Iranian-made cars, because of horrible car accidents due to manufacturing flaws.
Moreover, Iraq is setting forth a plan to import cars that suit its fuel resources, said Adnan al-Sharifi, the CEO of the state-owned car-import corporation.
"Iraqi fuel is well refined, something that Iranian companies have not observed," Adnan al-Sharifi said, Al Monitor website reported.
The state-owned corporation for car imports stated that it had banned the import of Iranian-made Saipa and Samand cars at the beginning of the year.
According to the statistics of the Islamic republic of Iran customs administrations(IRICA), Iran`s auto exports have decreased by 92 percent during the first four months of the current solar year (started on March 21) compared to the same period of last year.
Iran has exported 1269 vehicles worth $10 million during this period.
Iraq had the largest share of Iran's auto exports with 849 cars.
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