In a press meeting with the general and special media, Dr. Ahamd Mahdavi the general secretary of the َ”Association of Petrochemical Industry Companies” that is in fact the “Taskmaster Guild” association, announced about the massive smuggling of petrochemical products by brokers after purchasing it from the “Iran Mercantile Stock Exchange” (IME).
Mahdavi explaining about the current situation of Iranian petrochemical industries pointed to a huge demand put over the IME desks, said: “During the first quarter of this year, one billion and 760 million US$ has been sent to the domestic currency market” market.
Dr. Ahmad Mahdavi notified the journalists that: “Whereas the hot currency prices are increasing in the market, amazingly demands for petrochemicals and polymers in the stock exchange are also increasing at the same time”. He added: ” Last year, in the first four months of 1396 (March 21st-June 20th, 2017) demands for polymer products in the stock market was about 1.650 million tons, however this demand for the first four months of this year reached to an unprecedented figure of 4.573 million tons.
General Secretary of the APIC also said that: “Such a doubled demand has happened while over the past year, the construction and development of converting industries has not been doubled”!
The official also announced an increase of 220.000 tons in the trade volumes of the first four months of the year, compared to the same period last year, adding that in the first four months of this year, the volume of trade in polymer products has reached more 1.056 million tons.
He said that at the moment a huge part of the polymer products which is purchased from the stock exchange by dealers and brokers are being smuggled to neighboring countries such as Turkey, Afghanistan, Iraq, and others, adding that “dealers buy these products at the rate of one US$ for Rilas 42.000 and after smuggling it to neighboring countries, the foreign exchange earned from trafficking in goods is sold in the domestic market for 80.000 Rials/US$.
Pointing to the creation of additional problems of the smuggling of petrochemicals for the country’s petrochemical downstream industries, Mahdavi said: “Due to the smuggling of commodities to the neighboring countries, Iran has established new export policy and tariffs that has also increased the problems for both up and down stream industries”.
“Since the beginning of this year, the price of one Kg. of PET material has reached to Rls. 130.000-160.000, while speculators buy this product at a price of 68.000 Rials from IME.” He said and referring to the price increase of PET as a feed for the production of various bottles in the country, he added: “The PET price has been tripled in four months, while even one kilogram of PET has not been exported by petrochemicals companies at all”.
General Secretary of the APIC, recalling that due to the lack of reliable laboratories at the border customs, some brokers are smuggling part of the petrochemical products like PVC into other countries by declaring their goods as “SALT”. Due to this unbelievable mechanism of supplying petrochemical products by stock exchange the petrochemicals are going to leave the stock exchange. Mahdavi said.
Source: “PIME.IR“
