Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 19
By Fatih Karimov– Trend:
Over 49 percent of Iran’s legal cell phone imports came from the UAE during the first half of the current fiscal year (started March 20, 2017), the Iranian Customs Administration said.
The Islamic Republic imported 1.141 million cell phones, worth $134.15 million in the period.
At least $66.875 million worth of cell phones were imported from the UAE, which makes about half of the total imports.
The UAE is one of the economies which act as re-exporting intermediaries to Iran.
China ranked second among the cell phone exporters to Iran with $36.879 million worth of phones, followed by South Korea ($27.196 million).
Meanwhile over 97 percent of the cell phones which are being sold in the Iranian market are smuggled, Farhad Ehteshamzad, head of Iran’s Import Federation, said.
Only 3 percent of the cell phones in Iran’s market are imported legally, according to some Iranian officials.
Iranian officials say that 12.5 million cell phone devices are smuggled into the country depriving the government of $350 million in tax revenues.
The officials have estimated that phone devices worth $2.5 billion are smuggled into the country per year.
The annual demand for phone devices in the Iranian market is reportedly about 14 million.
According to the Customs Administration’s report, the Islamic Republic has also exported $2.607 million worth of cell phones during the first half of the current fiscal year.
Iraq was the main destination of Iran’s cell phone exports ($1.418 million) during the 6-month period. Iran furthermore exported $1.189 million worth of cell phones to the UAE.
