Head of Iran and Oman Chamber of Commerce Mohsen Zarrabi said on Saturday that the capacity of Iran-Oman trade stands at five billion dollars given the existing infrastructure and Iran�s diversity of exports.






Zarrabi made the remarks in an interview with IRNA.

Zarrabi said that trade between Iran and Oman amounted to only 221 million dollars in 2013 when the chamber of commerce was established.

He added that Iran�s exports to Oman reached 1.161 billion dollars in 2018 by the improvement of infrastructure, including shipping lines, easy registrations of companies and removing visas.

However, the figure fell 40 percent in 2019 because of internal hurdles to Iran�s exports, Zarrabi said, adding that it saw 103 million dollars increase in 2020, despite problems resulting from US sanctions and the coronavirus pandemic reaching 850 million dollars.

He hailed Oman�s role in keeping its ports open to Iran during the pandemic, while many other countries shut the doors to Iran�s goods.

Zarrabi said that Iran�s exports to Oman included minerals, agricultural products, food, industrial machinery and building materials.

Omani business people have recently developed a constructive trust in Iran-Oman chamber, increasing demands for Iranian goods, according to Zarrabi.

He stated that the chamber was planning to broaden the mutual trade between Iran and Oman to other areas like tourism, fishery and education and to organize a virtual exhibition in this regard.

He said that re-export of Iranian goods from Oman has increased, as the country has been more generous than other Persian Gulf states in embracing Iranian companies.

Iran�s foreign trade in the past 11 months leading to mid-February amounted to 134 million tons worth of 65.5 billion dollars, from which 31.2 billion dollars were exports and 34.3 billion dollars imports.