Mohammad Ali Dehghan Dehnavi, head of Iran’s Trade Promotion Organization, stated that in the first half of this year (March 21 to September 21), Iran’s non-oil foreign trade deficit reached $7 billion. This is compared to the historic record of $17 billion last year.
On October 13, Mohammad Ali Dehghan Dehnavi announced that in the first six months of the year, Iran’s total non-oil exports amounted to $25.8 billion, while imports reached $32.5 billion.
The last time Iran had a positive non-oil trade balance was in 2018. Iran’s trade deficit has grown so much in recent years that since the early months of Ebrahim Raisi’s administration, the regime’s customs included oil exports in their reports to mask the increasing foreign trade deficit.
Aside from the trade deficit, the latest Central Bank report shows that over $20 billion in capital flight occurred in the first nine months of last year (from March 21, 2023), marking a historic record. Since then, the government has stopped publishing capital account data and recently blocked access to such data, making the Central Bank’s website inaccessible from outside Iran.
The significant gap between Iran’s non-oil exports and imports (trade imbalance) and the regime’s tactic of including oil, electricity, and technical engineering services in customs reports come as tanker tracking firms report that Iran’s daily oil exports over the past two months have dropped by 400,000 barrels compared to previous months.
Additionally, in the first 10 days of October, Iran reduced its oil shipments by 70% to 600,000 barrels per day due to fears of retaliatory Israeli attacks on its oil facilities.
Thus, Iran’s oil revenues are expected to decline significantly in the second half of this year (from September 22, 2024, to March 20, 2025).
According to figures provided by the head of Iran’s Trade Promotion Organization, 79% of Iran’s imports and 75% of its non-oil exports are dependent on just five countries, with China at the top of the list.
Tanker tracking companies also report that 95% of Iran’s oil exports are dependent on the Chinese market, with the remainder going to Syria.
