Iranian regime President Ebrahim Raisi claimed that the regime’s exports had increased by 30-40 percent in the past year and reached $53 billion in 2022. However, in the spring of this year, the regime’s customs office announced that it had $14 billion in imports against $12.5 billion in exports. According to Saeedi, a member of the regime’s Majlis (parliament), “Raisi only presents statistics in such a way that many suspect these statistics are being made up in another country. Is this statistic related to our economic situation or are they creating them from elsewhere?” according to a report by the state-run Etemad newspaper on June 27, 2023.
Ebtakar, another state-run newspaper, wrote on June 6 that according to statistics from the World Bank, which was estimated by doctored data provided by the regime, the real economic growth of Iran in 2022 was 2.9% and this figure would decrease to 2.2% for 2023.
However, the exports that Raisi boasts about are mostly petrochemical and mining exports, most of which are sold as raw materials and, of course, at low prices. According to regime statistics, the most profitable export commodities are petrochemicals and oil-based goods, and the second rank is mining industries, which are essentially under the control of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). In June 2013, regime linked outlets reported that 99 percent of petrochemicals had been privatized. Some of the petrochemicals were transferred to the “Execution of Imam Khomeini’s Order”, an economic foundation tied to regime supreme leader Ali Khamenei, but the bulk of the petrochemicals were taken over by the “Ghadir Investment Company,” which is also part of Khamenei’s financial empire.
The “Persian Oil and Gas Development Co”, which belongs to Ghadir holding, alone has nine petrochemical plants and two refineries. “The Parsian Oil and Gas Group” is involved in circumventing international sanctions and, for example, regime outlets reported in 2018 that $30 billion earned from the sale of petrochemical products had not returned to the country’s currency resources, according to an August 17, 2018, report by the Rouydad24 website.
According to regime statistics, exports of minerals and mining industries amounted to $12 billion last year, and some of these minerals are exported to China at low prices.
The situation is the same in the steel industry. Iran’s most important steel company is “Mobarakeh Steel Company”, which produces nearly 50percent of Iran’s steel. This company is under the control of the “Basij Cooperative Foundation”, a subsidiary of the IRGC.
“Khuzestan Steel Company” is the second largest steel production hub in Iran, and the main shares of “Khuzestan Steel Company” are owned by the “Yas Holding Company”. Yas Holding is the main organization of the Basij Cooperative Foundation in the field of services, intermediation and housing, and has been involved in numerous corruption cases in the past three years.
Iranian Zarand Steel, Iranian Sirjan Steel, and Zagros Steel are among the important steel production companies, all of which are owned by the Basij Cooperative Foundation.
Therefore, the majority of the steel produced in Iran is under the control of the IRGC and Khamenei’s financial institutions. The regime’s steel companies produce steel with free water, cheap raw materials, very cheap energy, and by paying workers a quarter of the money required to stay above the poverty line.
On November 6, 2020, Alireza Salimi, a member of the Majlis, stated, “We had earned at least about $5 billion through steel exports in 2019. The question is whether this money has entered the domestic cycle and returned.”
The regime sells steel at significant discounts to find customers and circumvent sanctions. Mohammad Reza Shahidi Tabar, a representative of the Ministry of Industry, Mine, and Trade in the Iran Chamber, said that “Turkey makes a $170 profit for each ton of Iranian steel, and we are forced to sell steel cheaply. This is among the costs of sanctions,” according to the official Jomhouri-e Eslami newspaper, posted on November 18, 2021.
According to a May 19, 2022, report by the state-run Khabaronline website, the regime sells steel at a discount of almost 25 to 29 percent compared to the global market price, between $600 and $650.
Another product that the regime exports is dairy products. Due to the high cost of dairy products, consumption has significantly decreased in Iran. However the regime exports the dairy products produced in the country. In 2022, demand for dairy products decreased by 16.3 percent. The reason was an 80 percent increase in dairy prices. In contrast, due to the high prices, per capita consumption of dairy products in Iran has fallen below 70 kg, while in advanced countries, annual per capita consumption of milk is close to 200 kg. This was reported by the regime- linked Javan newspaper on June 17, 2023.
Another product that the regime exports is agricultural produce. For example, the regime exports approximately one million tons of apples annually. The export price of apples was 34 cents last year, and in 2021 it was 28 cents, but the same apples are sold in the Iranian market for about 70 cents, and the purchase price of apples from farmers is about 1 cent. When it reaches the customers in the fruit and vegetable markets, it becomes 30 times more expensive.
To harvest 1 million tons apple, 700 million cubic meter water are needed, which costs approximately $700 million. The regime will pay for this amount of water, farmer’s labor, poisons, fertilizers and transportation costs, to get $215 million.
The situation is similar for other agricultural products.
However, an important point to note about the regime’s product exports is that the prices of these products have decreased in recent years. For example, in 2012, the average price of each ton of export goods was $520, but this figure dropped to $307 in 2020 and reached $434 last year, which is almost a 20-percent decrease and shows the regime’s willingness to sell at a lower price.
The main export of the regime is crude oil. For this year, the regime has considered selling 1.4 million barrels of oil at a price of $85 in its budget, which is equivalent to a revenue of $43.5 billion. However, the regime sells its oil to China at a 44-percent discount and receives payment in yuan. In addition to the yuan, it also uses the currencies of Angola, Zambia, and Kenya for payment.
“In the 25-year agreement, China has estimated Iran’s oil and gas prices to be at least 30 percent lower than relevant benchmarks. According to a source from the energy security of the European Union, since Russia’s attack on Ukraine in February 2022, China has been asking for a 30-percent discount from Iran. This could also guarantee China’s ability to buy Russian oil,” according to regime’s Faraz Daily reported on May 10, 2023.
The amount of income from Iran’s oil exports is not clear, but according to regime newspaper Toseeirani on June 1, 2023, the regime earned $14 billion in oil income in six months.
Between 2005 and 2021, Iran’s foreign exchange earnings were $1.488 trillion, which is a significant amount, but there has been no economic growth during this period.
Therefore, since the cost of maintaining the regime on power is very high, Khamenei uses any means necessary to secure his hold on power, including coercion and plundering. Actually, exports are also used to serve the survival of the regime. The regime takes everything from the people of Iran so that it can earn income for warmongering, terrorism, and suppressing people. Inflation in Iran has broken the record in the past 80 years, and under the rule of the mullahs, Iran is among the 5-6 most inflationary countries in the world.
