"Managerial Challenges in the Field of Trade"

Mahmoud Bazari
Director of the Commodity Studies Office, Trade Promotion Organization of Iran

Foreign currency earnings from non-oil exports began in the late 1990s (Solar Hijri calendar), coinciding with the Third Development Plan, with the aim of operationalizing the "Export Leap" policy. Over time, however, foreign trade, due to shifting approaches, policies, government programs, and trade strategies, as well as regional and international developments—particularly the imposition of multiple foreign sanctions—has experienced significant fluctuations.

Iran’s vast productive capacities in goods and services, alongside its abundant natural resources, provide the potential for major breakthroughs in exports. Nevertheless, apart from exceptional cases and despite governmental efforts, the dominance of inward-looking approaches in overall economic policies, coupled with distancing from international trade networks and developments, has deprived actors in this field of the opportunity for sustainable growth in non-oil exports and the realization of a genuine export leap.

The most important reasons for the shift in policy focus—from the "Export Leap" objectives of the Third and Fourth Development Plans to a more subdued "Export Management" approach in the past decade—can be divided into several categories:

First, there has been insufficient attention to a long-term vision and integrated strategy within macroeconomic development policies, as well as to the continuity and enforcement of these policies. This stems largely from the political and factional preferences of successive governments, each seeking to manage the economy and trade policies in line with its own priorities. In such an environment, economic science, domestic realities, essential requirements for regional and international engagement, and, more broadly, Iran’s long-term future, have not been placed at the forefront.

Second, governments have generally lacked the necessary will to engage constructively with the private sector, delegate and transfer non-sovereign functions and powers to it, and distance state and quasi-state entities from enterprise ownership and interference in the country’s economic and trade affairs.

This tendency has, at times, gone so far that, under the justification of sanctions and crises, governmental interventions have expanded even further, sometimes acting as a barrier to development.

Third, the infrastructure and processes of economic policy-making and planning, including trade policy, as well as the training and employment of specialized and experienced human resources, have faced serious challenges over the past two decades.

From scientific, practical, and institutional perspectives