The Ministry of Industry, Mine and Trade promised to facilitate the imports of printing and writing paper.

Announcing the promise made by the Ministry of Industry, Mine and Trade to facilitate the imports of printing and writing paper at NIMA exchange rate, The head of the Union of Paper and cardboard Importers, Seyed Hassan Mirbagheri said, "Following some problems of importing printing and writing paper at NIMA exchange rate, such as the long term of order registration and the allocation of foreign currencies by the Central bank, we started negotiations with Mr. Kalami, the Director General of the Office of Planning the supply, Distribution and Market Adjustment, who promised to help us in this respect and remove the imports barriers."

He continued, "Of course, there has already been cooperation in this field, which led to the improvement of the import process and the downward trend of paper price. Meanwhile, the cooperation of the Central Bank in allocating foreign currencies at NIMA exchange rate is very important. Of course, promises have been made to speed up the process of allocating currencies for the real importers approved by the Union." 

He said, "There had been problems with customs clearance before, but all shipments were cleared after the Ministry of Industry followed up the problems." 

Responding to why the price of printing and writing paper does not fall seriously on the market despite all these facilities, Mirbagheri said, "One of the most important issues is the two exchange rates for the imports of printing paper. The Ministry of Islamic Guidance has an 80,000 – ton quota which causes the main consumers go out of the free market. Therefore the importers do not accept the market risk and are not willing to import paper."

Finally, he said, "It is now difficult to circumvent sanctions for money transfer. No importer can import paper sooner than three or four months. If a calm atmosphere dominates the investment on this market, if the ministry of Industry keeps on its supports, and if the foreign currencies are allocated on time, the prices will definitely fall seriously."