Mohammad Mehdi Baradaran also put the exports value of the country a year earlier at $37.5 billion.
Speaking in the honoring ceremony of the exemplary exporters of Khorasan Razavi province on Thursday, Baradaran stated that interacting with various countries of the world, especially neighboring countries, is a top priority of the administration of President Ebrahim Raisi.
He pointed to the restoration of diplomatic ties between Iran and Saudi Arabia after seven years and added that as soon as the political relations between the two countries were resumed, the Saudi Arabian traders called on Iranian counterparts to export the first cargo of food to the Arab country in line with reactivating the trade exchanges between the two countries.
Elsewhere in his remarks, the deputy industry minister pointed to the upcoming visit by Raisi to Indonesia and said, “With the coordination made in this regard, giant steps would be taken in line with implementing the preferential tariffs in order to carry out imports and exports to this Muslim country with the least possible tariff rates.”