Iran’s trade turnover with BRICS member countries has reached roughly US$60 billion a year, according to Mohammad Sadegh Ghanadzadeh, Deputy Head of Iran’s Trade Promotion Organisation. Iran’s trade turnover with BRICS member countries amounted to $60 billion last year, and Iran exported $23 billion worth of goods to BRICS member countries last year, while importing $37 billion worth of goods from member countries of the group. His comments, first carried by IRNA and picked up by TV BRICS partner outlets, offer a fresh snapshot of how deeply Tehran has woven itself into the bloc’s economy despite years of Western sanctions.
What makes the figure notable is the context in which it was delivered. Gannadzadeh added that despite sanctions imposed on Iran and problems in transportation, freight and air services arising from the war situation, Iran has maintained economic exchanges with BRICS member countries and should make use of the opportunities offered by these countries to expand trade relations. In other words, Tehran is not simply keeping trade ties alive on paper; it is treating BRICS membership as a practical lifeline at a time when many conventional trading routes remain constrained.
The official was careful to note that the relationship still has considerable room to grow. He added that Iran could expand cooperation with BRICS members in transit, trade facilitation, customs, coordination on standards and payment mechanisms, and said there was room to expand the use of local currencies in bilateral trade between member countries, noting that this practice could contribute to the development of broader financial mechanisms among BRICS members. This chimes with a wider push within BRICS towards de-dollarisation, a theme Iranian officials have raised repeatedly since joining the bloc. Perhaps most tellingly, Ghanadzadeh added that despite the large volume of trade, the full potential of Iran’s membership in the group has yet to be realised in the country’s economy, a rare admission that headline numbers do not necessarily translate into transformed economic fortunes at home.
Iran formally became a BRICS member in 2023, having previously built trade links with individual member states for years beforehand. Back in 2022-2023, non-oil trade with the bloc stood at around $38 billion, with China alone accounting for the lion’s share. The jump to a $60 billion total trade figure, spanning oil and non-oil exchanges, suggests the relationship has deepened considerably since full membership took effect, even allowing for currency fluctuations and differing methods of counting trade.
Agriculture offers a useful illustration of how entrenched this relationship has become. Iran’s Minister of Agriculture, Gholamreza Nouri Ghezeljeh, has separately pointed out that roughly $25 billion of Iran’s agricultural trade runs through BRICS countries, covering half of the nation’s agricultural imports and a third of its exports. Exporters on the ground echo this sense of gradual, if uneven, progress; one Iranian trader told FreshPlaza that BRICS membership was "a big step in the right direction", even as he noted that non-dollar payment channels through Russian and Chinese banks remain limited and cumbersome.
The most recent BRICS Summit gave Iran a platform to press for improvements on precisely these bottlenecks. Discussions there centred on international transport corridors, trade expansion, financial cooperation and mutual settlement mechanisms, with Tehran signalling its readiness to take part in rolling these out. Priorities identified included developing transit routes, simplifying trade procedures, coordinating customs operations and improving payment systems — all areas where Iran has a direct stake, given the logistical difficulties it has faced under sanctions.
Taken together, the picture is one of steady, if incomplete, integration. Iran has clearly found in BRICS a set of partners willing to keep trading despite the political pressure Tehran faces elsewhere, and the $60 billion figure is real evidence of that. But as Ghanadzadeh himself conceded, converting membership into full economic advantage, through smoother payments, better transport links and deeper currency cooperation, remains a work in progress rather than a finished achievement.
Written by:
*Dr Iqbal Survé
Past chairman of the BRICS Business Council and co-chairman of the BRICS Media Forum and the BRNN
*Chloe Maluleke
Associate at BRICS+ Consulting Group
Russia & Middle East Specialist
**The Views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of Independent Media or IOL.
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