Azernews.Az

Iran has started trading oil for goods in order to bypass US-generated sanctions, Deputy Industry, Mine, and Trade Minister Hamid Safdel said on Tuesday.

The Industry, Mine and Trade Ministry has formed a specialised committee in order to facilitate private sector's trade, Mehr news agency quoted Safdel as saying.

Several Iranian companies have already traded some oil cargos with goods in the past few months, he added.

While oil exports account for lion's share of Iran's exports, the country is also trying hard to boost its non-oil exports.

Tehran exported over 34.5 billion dollars' worth of non-oil goods just in the first 10 months of the current Iranian calendar year which began March 20, 2012.

Iran also imported 43.7 billion dollars' worth of goods in the aforementioned period marking an overall trade value of 78.2 billion dollars, the report said.

Iran imports also faced a 12.5 per cent decrease in comparison to the same time span last year.

The head of Central Bank of Iran said last month that Iran's exports have been doubled in the past few months.

On the contrary, imports have faced a sharp decrease due to the high price of foreign currencies, IRNA news agency quoted Mahmoud Bahmani as saying.

Iran plans to export 51 million dollars' worth of non-oil goods and technical and engineering services by the end of current year on March 19.

Iran exported $43.7 billion worth of non-oil goods last year and imported $61.8 billion worth of goods, to hit the unprecedented mark of $105 billion in annual trade.

Iran also earned four million dollars last year by exporting technical and engineering services to over 60 countries.

At the beginning of 2012, the United States and European Union imposed new sanctions on Iran's oil and financial sectors with the goal of preventing other countries from purchasing Iranian oil and conducting transactions with the Iranian Central Bank.

U.S. sanctions entered into force on June 28, while the EU ban on Iranian oil imports came into force on July 1.

In October the EU approved another major package of economic sanctions on Iran.