Eurostat has announced that, in the first quarter of 2017, Italy was the first trade partner of Iran among members of the European Union (EU).
Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union, announced that Iran and Italy exchanged products worth 1.2 billion euros in the first season of 2017 with 800 million euros pertaining to Iran's exports to Italy and 400 million euros to its imports from the European country.
As such, Italy is marked as the first trade partner of Iran ahead of France and Germany who have occupied second and third positions.
Over the past two years, volume of Iran's trade with the EU member states has increased significantly especially as regards exchanges with Italy which have catapulted by 200 per cent during the same period.
Tehran and Rome’s positive trade balance had always in favor of Italy in the past 10 years while the figure turned positive in favor of Iran in the first quarter of the present year.
In 2015, Iran-Italy trade volume stood at 1.7 billion euros of which 500 million euros belonged to Iran’s export to the European side while the rest pertained to its imports.
Iran remains as an invaluable opportunity for the European industries who are after new markets enthusiastically.
Until last year, Italy fell behind Germany as Iran's trade partner in Europe. Volume of trade between Iran and Italy has set the record high figure of seven billion dollars in 2011 while it dropped to 1.2 billion euros in 2013 once international sanctions were imposed against the Iranian economy.
Nevertheless, the trade volume between Tehran and Rome have taken up an upward trend again as evidenced by the figure for 2015 which surpassed 1.6 billion euros.
Eurostat is the statistical office of the European Union situated in Luxembourg. Its mission is to provide high quality statistics for Europe.