80% of COVID-19 vaccine imported from China

Speaking to ILNA, Chairman of the Iran-China Joint Chamber of Commerce Majid-Reza Hariri said China has had faced no restrictions, so far, for sending COVID-19 vaccines to Iran.

“75 to 80 percent of the 11 million doses [of coronavirus vaccines] imported into the country have come from China,” he said.

This is while other countries have delivered only a very small part of the 16-17 million doses of vaccines, including Covax doses,  that Iran has forward purchased from them, he added.

He then touched upon some problems which exist in Tehran-Beijing trade transactions, saying it is difficult to buy some U.S.-licensed commodities from China.

“Naturally, some enterprises give priority to their own interests. Even when it comes to oil, China has officially announced that it will not accept the United States’ unilateral oil and non-oil sanctions. But many Chinese enterprises are not working with us lest their corporate interests might be jeopardized,” he said.

“There are other issues like sanctions on ports, which, all together, affect transactions between the two countries. If an Iranian ship docks at a port, the port and its operator will face U.S. sanctions,” he said.

He said before the sanctions, oil accounted for major part of Iran’s exports to China as Iran used to export 60,000 barrels per day of oil to this East Asian country and if today the country can sell the same amount of oil to China like pre-sanctions era, the country will earn $14 to $15b per year.

He also noted that unfortunately sanctions of ports have affected badly Iran-China trade exchanges and if Iranian vessel docks at any port, the port and its operator will be slapped with the U.S. sanctions.

Hariri further said that the oil companies in China are commercial enterprises and they do not prefer political issues to the commercial ones.

END