economy
In this edition of the Economy an in-depth analysis of Iran’s non-oil exports is provided. Iran’s non-oil exports have historically been limited to luxury good such as handmade carpets or foodstuff like pistachios, nuts, fruits and caviar. In recent years, however, Iran’s non-oil export figures witnessed impressive growth rates that saw the figure rise from only 3.8 billion in 2000 to over $16 billion in 2006. Given Iran’s diverse economy as well as its natural resources and human capital, that figure is still very small compared to countries of similar population size like Turkey (over $80 billion of export in 2006). However, with fresh investments in Iran’s high value-added and competitive industries such as the petrochemical, mining and metals sectors, and with the new internationalization strategies that a number of Iranian companies are pursuing, the growth rate of the country’s non-oil exports is expected to remain high in the coming years. The following graph illustrates the value and growth rates of non-oil exports over the last few years.
Industries & Products
Iran includes petrochemical products in its non-oil basket; as a result, and due to heavy investments in this sector in the past few years, petrochemical goods are the main non-oil export of the country which makes up around 39% of the total value of non-oil exports. Second to petrochemical goods are industrial products and manufactured goods with 32% of the non-oil export total followed by agricultural products with 13%, minerals with 5.4% and handicrafts with 3.3%.
The following chart demonstrates the distribution of Iran’s non-oil exports by the type of commodities. This shows that the top 10 commodities constitute over 50% of total non-oil exports which is a sign of relatively low diversity in the country’s export basket:
Destinations
Over 60 percent of Iran’s non-oil exports are destined to only 10 countries which shows a lack of diversity in Iran’s trade partners. However, it is important to note that a great deal of Iran’s exports to its main destination, the United Arab Emirates, is re-exported to other countries. The following graph demonstrates the top 10 export destinations and the value of non-oil exports to those countries.
