As the Iranian government is trying hard to clean markets from fake and counterfeit items, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Finance is considering the reduction of customs tariffs to allow certified importers to distribute cheap mobile phones in Iran more than before. The new economic sanctions on Iran’s economy have affected the mobile markets of the country and the spending power of customer has been decreased dramatically.
Ebrahim Dorosti supported the recent movement by Iranian government and said: “By implementing this project, Ministry of Economic Affairs and Finance must reduce customs tariffs for traders to persuade them to import more cheap phones to country.” Dorosti also believes the smuggled mobile phones form a large portion of markets’ goods and new phones must replace with them to keep the markets’ capacities equally.
“At the current situations, those uncertified importers can earn much money by importing digital devices illegally to country. Currently their market share is above 70%. Unfortunately the current customs duties are more than 17% for certified importers. We severely urge the Ministry to cut these rates.” Ebrahim Dorosti added.
Only a few numbers of international companies have official offices and representatives in Iran. Nokia and Apple are the two popular mobile brands in Iran but due to U.S. embargoes they cannot ship products to Iran and serve Iranian customers. Iranian clients are suffering from these restrictions in mobile markets.